Customer Experience and Ethics

I decided to steer clear of a forum discussion in which customer experience was being categorized as a “moral imperative,” largely because I have a knee-jerk reaction to that particular phrase.   People who claim that something is a moral imperative ...

1. Have a vague sense something is important but can’t explain the reason it should be so
2. Do not understand the concept of “moral imperative” at all

The notion of moral imperative places a discussion outside the realm of rationality, diverging from philosophy and entering the realm of religion.   Much of this is the work of Kant and his attempt to identify a categorical proposition –  and whose failure did not seem to dispel the notion that "just because" is an acceptable basis of morality.

Suffice to say that customer experience can be considered a derivative of ethics, but in a rational way: it is an ethical corollary that verges on an axiom.  That is to say that a firm is defined as such by its purpose – which opens quite another can of worms: whether a firm exists to serve the interests of its investors or those of its customers.  

The customer-first partisans need no further reason.  If it is taken as axiom that a firm exists for the benefit of its customers, then the only argument left is procedural – what actions are most suited to accomplishing that purpose, and which benefits to the customer are to be prioritized.   That is to say that  there can be no argument that the customer experience as a whole is important, yet potential disagreement over what elements of "experience" are most important.

The investors-first partisans are satisfied with the proposition that a firm can be ethical, in that it satisfy its fiduciary responsibility to its investors, by generating a profit without serving the interests of its customers – though it does require ignoring every other consequences of actions undertaken to achieve that goal, which departs from ethics and degenerates into effectiveness.

Functional ethics, which cannot hide itself in the abstractions of dialectics, can neither ignore nor classify as “side effects” or “collateral damage” the harm that is done by pursuing a single narrowly defined purpose.  It must consider the environment in which an action is undertaken and its impact on all stakeholders.  As such, even if we accept the perspective that customer experience is only important insofar as it renders the desired benefit to the investor, retaining the customer over a longer period of time and extracting from him a greater revenue is not directly required, but conditionally required.

But neither is the customer-first partisan able to ignore the interest of the investor entirely if he, too, adopts a long-term perspective.   The immediate need of the customer does not require service to the interests of the investor, but the long-term need of the customer does - insofar as his need is ongoing, a condition of his consumption is the sustainability of the source.

As such, the arguments based on opposing premises arrive at a conclusion that is logically similar:

• To serve the long-term interest of its investors, a firm must satisfy the needs of its customers
• To serve the long-term interest of its customers, a firm must satisfy the needs of its investors

As theses of the same argument, this would seem a tautology - but as they are conclusions of two separate arguments, it indicates a compatibility or alignment of interests, or functional symbiosis.