Twelve invented customer ethics situations and the fact that settles each one

Twelve situations, all invented, none describing a real company. Each is built so that a reasonable person could argue either way for about thirty seconds, which is the length of the argument you will actually have.

For each: the case for it, the case against, and the thing that settles it. The settling consideration is usually not a principle. It is a fact somebody in the room already knows and has not said.

What to take away

Pricing and money

1. The renewal that rises by inflation, automatically. For it: costs rise, the term says so, and repricing every account by hand is not feasible. Against: the customer agreed once, years ago, to a mechanism they no longer remember. What settles it: whether the notice arrives with time to act. An automatic rise with thirty days' warning and a visible cancel route is a term. The same rise appearing on a card statement is a surprise, and surprise is the thing customers punish.

2. The discount that only new customers see. For it: acquisition costs money and every business does it. Against: your longest-standing customers are subsidising it without being told. What settles it: whether an existing customer can see the new price and ask for it. If they can, this is a promotion. If the two prices are structurally invisible to each other, it is a penalty on loyalty wearing a promotion's clothes.

3. The fee that only disorganized people pay. A charge for paying late, changing a booking, or exceeding a limit. For it: it prices a real cost and it is avoidable. Against: revenue from it is concentrated in people who are struggling. What settles it: run the numbers on who actually pays it. If a meaningful share of the product's margin comes from this fee, you no longer have a fee, you have a business model, and it belongs in front of whoever owns the product.

Defaults and flows

4. The pre-ticked add-on that most people keep. For it: most customers do want it, and unticking it reduces sales of something useful. Against: "most people keep it" is what a default produces regardless of what people want. What settles it: untick it for a month and see. If the take-up holds, the default was serving customers. If it collapses, the default was the product.

5. The cancel flow with three offers in it. For it: a customer leaving over a fixable problem should be told it is fixable. Against: three offers is not information, it is friction. What settles it: whether the customer can decline once and be done. One offer, accepted or declined, then the cancellation. A flow that requires the same answer three times has stopped being a conversation. A customer ethics checklist tests the cancel flow against evidence rather than intention.

6. The trial that converts silently. For it: the terms were clear at sign-up and a reminder reduces conversion. Against: the second half of that sentence is the whole objection stated as a benefit. What settles it: your own support queue. If people contact you surprised by the charge, the design is working on forgetting, and the revenue is a refund liability you have not booked yet.

What you say

7. The claim that is true of the best case. A speed, a saving, a result that some customers genuinely get. For it: it is not false, and every competitor does the same. Against: a reasonable reader takes it as typical. What settles it: whether the limitation sits beside the claim or two pages later. Guidance for advertisers on endorsements and testimonials turns on the same point: a qualification the reader does not encounter at the moment of decision is not a qualification.

8. The comparison you chose after seeing the results. For it: you have to compare against something, and every benchmark is a choice. Against: choosing it afterwards makes it a finding about your marketing, not about your product. What settles it: whether you would have published the comparison had it gone the other way. Write the answer down before you look. An ethical frameworks case study shows how reasoning gets built to fit a decision already made.

9. The demo that is faster than production. For it: demonstrations are always idealised and buyers know that. Against: this buyer is making a purchase decision on what they saw. What settles it: one sentence in the demo saying what is different from a real deployment. It costs nothing, it is remembered as candour, and it removes the complaint you would otherwise get in month three.

Data and the person on the other end

10. The helpful use of data collected for something else. You could spot customers heading for a problem and warn them. For it: it helps them. Against: they gave you the data to run a service. What settles it: ask them. Regulator guidance on what consent has to look like to be valid is a useful discipline here even outside its jurisdiction, because it forces the question of whether a permission obtained for one purpose stretches to another. Where personal data is involved the legal question runs alongside the ethical one, and counsel answers the first.

11. The customer who cannot evaluate what they are agreeing to. Someone in distress, recently bereaved, or dealing with the account of a relative. For it: you cannot design for every case, and treating people differently has its own risks. Against: this is not an edge case, it is a predictable fraction of every customer base. What settles it: whether a support agent who notices has somewhere to route it that is not the retention script, and whether using that route counts against them. If it does, the route does not exist. What that costs the agent personally is the subject of employee ethics.

12. The win-back campaign aimed at people who left angry. For it: they were customers, the data is yours, and some will return. Against: they left, which was a decision, and you are using what they told you while they were inside to work on them from outside. What settles it: whether leaving actually ends the relationship. If someone has canceled and asked not to be contacted, that is the answer to the campaign. If they simply left, one honest message is defensible and a sequence of six is not.

The pattern across all twelve

The right-hand column is the point of the article. Every case above is settled by something you can look up this week, not by a position on what companies owe people. The general method for cases where the interests genuinely conflict is in ethical dilemmas, and the asymmetry that makes all of these possible is set out in customer ethics.

Common questions

Several of these are standard practice in our industry. Does that matter?

It tells you what the argument will feel like internally and nothing about whether the practice is defensible. "Everyone does it" is an answer to a question about competitiveness. The cases above are settled by facts about your own customers.

Who should make these calls?

Not the person whose target moves with the answer, which is usually the person who currently makes them. Route the ones with a right-hand column to someone whose result does not depend on it, which is the same structural point made in leadership ethics.

What if the honest version costs real revenue?

Then you have found a genuine trade-off rather than an oversight, and it deserves a decision by someone senior, recorded, with the cost stated. That is a different and better position than discovering the same number later, under pressure, after a customer has published the comparison.