Deceitful Spammer or Marketing Genius?
- Organizations are required to conduct business operations following the set standards and be responsible for all their actions. Every organization must establish a code of conduct which stipulates how members of the business entity must behave to eliminate situations involving ethical dilemma regarding ethical dilemma, every choice that an individual take could have various consequences (Velasquez & Velazquez, 2012). As such, it is a prerequisite for employees to assess and review the outcomes of every situation and subsequently determine the appropriate actions they should take to avoid the ethical dilemma. In the case study, a deceitful spammer or a marketing genius? Rachel faced an ethical dilemma in which she was required to choose between two choices at her disposal. The first dilemma she encountered was whether to implement the direction given by her supervisor to flood the email boxes with marketing advertisements (Silliman, 2007). The ethical dilemma arising in Rachel’s situation was that flooding the customers’ email boxes with the advertisements would cause injustice to the clients while at the same time she would be faulting the instructions given by her employer which would mean disobedience. Although Rachel was anxious about getting positive results just like her employer, she was convinced that flooding the customers’ emails with advertisements would cause trust issues among the customers thus leading to the company’s loss of sales and customer base (Silliman, 2007).
- Cindy Anderson’s strategy was unethical as it was deceitful and would eventually cause the company’s clients to lose trust in the firm. Clients often provide companies with their email ID’s out of trust. Nonetheless, if the firm misuses these emails by sending the customers spam emails, then they would feel deceived and lose trust in the business. In other words, customers would feel that the organization is taking advantage of their trust for its gains and they could subsequently block the company’s email and move the business to alternative corporations (Silliman, 2007).
- Rachel must maintain the trust of the customers and not abuse the channel of communication. She is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the appropriate passage of relevant and desirable information about the company’s products and services to the clients in addition to uphold the utmost accountability in communicating trustworthy information to the customers (Silliman, 2007). Moreover, Rachel has the responsibility of expanding the firm’s customer base by implementing effective marketing strategies that would promote the entity’s products and services. Furthermore, while advertising the company’s website to both potential and existing clients, Rachel is vested with the obligation of maintaining the corporation’s image and provide advisory services to the management about the best ethical practices for advertisement (Silliman, 2007).
- The crucial factor in Rachel’s response to the ethical dilemma situation is that she embraced integrity and was courageous in sticking to her decision. She also had adept market analytical skills since she could forecast how her boss’s strategy was financially viable in the market. Her knowledge of business ethics helped her to provide advice to the managers about the effective ways they would employ for the corporation to gain a competitive edge in the market. The bottom-line factor that Rachel considered in the ethical dilemma in confronting her employer’s deceitful idea was honesty. She claimed that, although deceit may appear quick, easy, and appealing, it would ultimately lose the trust of the customers leading to their withdrawal of subscriptions (Silliman, 2007).
References
Silliman, J. (2007). Deceitful Spammer or Marketing Genius? Markkula Center for Applied Ethics: Santa Clara University.
Velasquez, M. G., & Velazquez, M. (2012). Business ethics: Concepts and cases (Vol. 111). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.