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We believe in a minimum standard of acceptible conduct between human beings. Often these days, that standard is overlooked in our everyday lives. It's a busy world, and we're busy people. But still, we believe in a standard of conduct that acknowledges a human's right to be treated fairly.
In an attempt to express and encourage this belief within the company and in the greater community, we have begun to develop the following ethical mission statement- for lack of a better term. It is not perfect, and should not be interpreted as any sort of guarantee of any kind. However, it is an ideal and a target for our company. It consists of several principles of behavior- most of which flow from the Golden Rule, but are often overlooked or discounted in business for several reasons. Most often, they are ignored because their contribution to the "bottom line" is intangible and not easily quantified. We give some examples of why we think these beliefs are important and hope that his statement will evolve over time to express an ongoing committment to embedding an ethical element within the company.
Principle 1: Acknowledge the human to human experience. Even though we do our business over the internet, it is important to understand that our customers are people, even though it is often the case that we only have contact via our shopping cart or email. They may prefer to do business with a click and a brief message, but that doesn't mean they're machines. We should take time to acknowledge each other in some way. Cut out the machine talk whenever possible.
Principle 2: Be a fair trader. We all want to be treated fairly. Our customers want to be treated fairly, meaning they want to get what they paid for, in a timely manner, and not taken on some wild ride. We also want to be treated fairly, in that we want to have a fair exchange of energy with the customer. The most important part of being a fair trader is to be truthful in your pursuasion (don't set up unreachable expectations), truthful in the transaction, and truthful in the execution. Strive to be fair to yourself and others.
Principle 3: Take no short-cuts. It is tempting, after a transaction has occurred, to file the customer in the "done" pile. Our customers should be treated as continuing or return customers in a neighborhood sense. Restated, we must treat our online customers with the same respect we would treat a real world customer if we were a neighborhood green grocer. Think in terms of, "I may have to see this person again tomorrow", and from that perspective it is easy to see why we should show care in how we treat each other today. Another way to think about this concept is that each transaction or contact is equally important- each sale, each delivery, each email, each phone call and each return deserves equal attention.
We realize that without consequences for bad behavior, this is merely a bunch of words, but we think it is a good beginning, and over time, we will develop a stronger committment to ethics if we can follow these principles at a minimum. As long as we're still in business, we have the opportunity to improve. And if we fail to keep these principles in mind, the consequences will manifest themselves in our bottom line.
-David Prokowiew, PRESIDENT