Recently, a woman went viral on Instagram for dragging a particular hair vendor through various means to recover her money from the said vendor.
She had ordered a particular type of wig from the vendor and had made full payment. However, when the wig was delivered to her, it was a situation of “what I ordered vs what I got”. Funny, yeah? Oh, wait.
She got a sponge wig instead of the one she advertised, and on the vendor’s Instagram bio is clearly written “no refund”.
Thinking she had gone scot free because the said hair vendor had done that multiple times and escaped with it, she made her own different. The customer calmly requested a refund as what she got was different from what she ordered, but the vendor wouldn’t budge. According to her, “it is one of the company’s policy to not refund”.
Then, the customer decided to go lower than the hair vendor. She designed a banner, got a uniform, and entered the Lagos traffic to drag the vendor. She shouted, screamed, rested, and picked up again, shouting the hair vendor’s name, and tagging the business a scam.
She didn’t stop at that, she further went to the market and continued with the dragging while streaming it live on Tiktok, and every other social media network she could use. And, honestly, that right there was more than the vendor bargained for.
Eventually, the “no refund” policy was altered for this customer, and she got all her money back in full. Now, this is a situation of putting profit over ethics.
Truthfully, businesses thrive on profit. They are solely in business for the profit. However, ethics in business does not stop the business from booming. Ethical practices in business could mean being truthful in all business dealings, keeping promises, standing by your values (if you have any at all), doing the right thing even when no one is looking, treating your customers, and employees right, taking responsibility for your mistakes, and respecting every stakeholder involved in your business.
Make a profit, but not at the expense of your business values. In the short run, the profit may come, but in the long run, your business will lose every form of integrity left, and the profit that made you throw away ethical practices from the start will start reducing and may eventually wreck your business.
The hair vendor above, prior to meeting the customer that advertised her to the world as a scam had a lot of other customers she had done the same to and was already known as the hair vendor with no value. Now, how long do you think it will take her to build her business integrity back up?
It wouldn’t have cost her a lot to make sure that she has exactly the same wig she advertised delivered to her customers, but she chose to throw ethics in the pit, and squarely face profit, and that has cost her a lot more than money. Now, she needs to build her integrity back up which will cost her time, twice the efforts, reviews, and money.
Profitability and ethical practices in business are twins and should be inseparable for a business owner. At the long run, a business built on honesty, integrity, and strong values will survive every storm and result in profit and help build loyal customers.
Images are from MetaAI.