Business Ethics - Would you do it?

Tony Shelton

BS Detector, Esquire
Since there is no ethics forum on here I put it in here. I'd like to see an ethics forum. Anybody else interested in that or is it too controversial.

Here's a question to start the thread:

Would you sell a product that was not needed.

Here's the scenario. Customer calls and says he needs his driveway professionally cleaned because he spilled a half gallon of Chlorine on it and someone told him he has to get it cleaned by a professional since chlorine is so toxic. LOL. The house is brand new, and the driveway is clean as new.

He doesn't care how much it costs, he's just worried about his children. This spill happened last week.

Would you clean his driveway.

Throw this into the mix. You are short $150 on paying your mortgage and it's due in 2 days.
 
Easy one for me, I would explain in the call that he does not need the service. If he remains concerned, I would suggest watering it down himself.

If he pushed the issue for us to clean it after this, it would be a nominal charge, regardless of my own financial obligations.

I stand by our honesty and straightforward approach - I have lost bids by sharing too much 'educational' info, but our customers and prospects know we respect them when all is said and done. At the same time, we have won many bids and gained a bunch of referrals because of honesty.
 
I would explain what Chlorine is and what it does. Just like Steve said, tell him to go rinse it down with water. Now, If it were an older driveway that had not been maintained/cleaned and it left a huge bleached out/clean spot and he wanted the rest cleaned, that would be a diferent story and yes I would come out.
 
That's what I expected from most on here.

What about this:

You're a KEC guy. You can make money off the install of some (any) grease containment device and the maintenance of said device. You get on the roof of a 12 year old restaurant that has never had any kind of grease containment system nor has the grease drip ever been cleaned. Would you install the grease protection and charge them for quarterly maintenance?

It looks like this:

2011-04-10_07-10-10_182.jpg
 
Easy one for me, I would explain in the call that he does not need the service. If he remains concerned, I would suggest watering it down himself.

If he pushed the issue for us to clean it after this, it would be a nominal charge, regardless of my own financial obligations.

I stand by our honesty and straightforward approach - I have lost bids by sharing too much 'educational' info, but our customers and prospects know we respect them when all is said and done. At the same time, we have won many bids and gained a bunch of referrals because of honesty.

I agree with Steve. We done the same as his last statement also.
 
I would explain, and if they insisted they needed it done, I would do my standard rate. That would be enough to scare him off.
 
Tony that's sort of a loaded question ...haha If I had a cushion in the bank I would tell him to wash down or fully irrigate the area and than (if he was super anal) tell him to spread some soda ash and flood the area again. Now if my kids were about to become homeless because of insuficient funds to pay the mortgage I would tell him his property was going to turn into a toxic waste land unless he gave me his check book! just kidding.....jeesh!
 
For the KEC part: that's just a down spout for the rain water (perhaps unneeded in the desert) to leave the fan bowl. Many fans just have a hole. I feel grease containment (device that catches the grease and separates the water) is a miserable mistake in the first place. Sure, some money can be made on maintanence. But, it's meant to stop grease from tainting the roof. I enough grease has passed through the system to spill out on the roof, the system needs to be cleaned. Some high volume places have that problem in 30days or less. Grease containment just makes them think they can wait longer between cleanings... But, the accumulation in the system is horrible, and harder to clean, and since the kitchen wanted to save money, hense the containment, go twice as long between cleanings than the containment bought them, and they hire the cheapest they can find, and they do crap work, and many containment systems make systems harder to clean, meaning they need to be cleaned more often, which doesn't happen because the kitchen is cheap, so grease solidifies in "inaccessible" areas...
And then a real cleaner arrives, and tells them it would be cheaper to build a new building w/ a simple, plain system and up blast fan, than it would be to clean the atrocity they cook under!

I think 99% of grease containment (perhaps begin w/ good intentions) become an ethical nightmare that most restaurants (for some reason) beg for!
 
Easy one for me, I would explain in the call that he does not need the service. If he remains concerned, I would suggest watering it down himself.

If he pushed the issue for us to clean it after this, it would be a nominal charge, regardless of my own financial obligations.

I stand by our honesty and straightforward approach - I have lost bids by sharing too much 'educational' info, but our customers and prospects know we respect them when all is said and done. At the same time, we have won many bids and gained a bunch of referrals because of honesty.

Ditto
 
Since there is no ethics forum on here I put it in here. I'd like to see an ethics forum. Anybody else interested in that or is it too controversial.

Here's a question to start the thread:

Would you sell a product that was not needed.

Here's the scenario. Customer calls and says he needs his driveway professionally cleaned because he spilled a half gallon of Chlorine on it and someone told him he has to get it cleaned by a professional since chlorine is so toxic. LOL. The house is brand new, and the driveway is clean as new.

He doesn't care how much it costs, he's just worried about his children. This spill happened last week.

Would you clean his driveway.

Throw this into the mix. You are short $150 on paying your mortgage and it's due in 2 days.

No,

Can I borrow $150?
 
I get people calling all the time wanting to buy new air filters after 3 or 4 years from because a friend told them they can only be cleaned a few years. Sometimes its hard to talk your way out of a sale.

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I would explain the situation to them and let them know their options and tell them my minimum charge to come out for a job but recommend that they rinse off their area with water as that is all they need.

If they are adamant about hiring a pro then I would take the job but only after the explanation above.

There have been many jobs I have walked away from, some on the job once I found out the situation. I don't want anyone to ever have a reason to accuse me of anything so Honesty is the best policy, even if it means no work as it can come back to bite you in the azz.

I have done some bids for jobs where the customer has doubt about what the previous contractor said during the bid and I explain the situation, let them know their options and ask what they would like to do, it is never a good idea to lie to anyone as you never know who you are really talking to and if they really know about cleaning and pressure washing, some situations could become awkward if you say the wrong thing and they know the truth.
 
I have had customers call about a situation and I explain that the service is not needed at this time. But after thanking me for being honest they still want me to come out and perform the service anyway to "ease their mind". Sometimes they just want peace of mind and I can understand that.
 
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