Aggressive Sales Quotas or Unfair Business Practice

Aggressive Sales Quotas or Unfair Business Practice

• The ethical dilemma of Peter

Peter was new in the advertising sector while he was given the position of customer service representative within the serving area of San Francisco. During his service period, he identified that people who are associated with most small businesses spend massive money on the advertisement packaged, which were not quite required as per their operations. Moreover, Peter also noticed that these businesses are spending on expensive packages of advertisements associated with internet services despite having minimum knowledge of the activities of the internet. This made Peter restrict his services as he was unable to fulfill the provided target of selling advertising to a possible extent after he found out that the market of San Francisco was saturated. However, he was constantly pressured from his home office to meet his target. At this point in time, Peter faced an ethical dilemma, as on one side, he was unable to sell services, and on the other side, he received constant pressure (Van Auken, 2016). The only way Peter had to avoid such a dilemma was to examine the existing market and communicate with the customers.

• Virtues required by Peter and his motivating factors

The virtues that Peter needed according to the acts undertaken by him are diligence, honesty, and patience (Dawson, 2018). This is evident from his activities regarding his business for establishing effective customer relationships, conducting proper communication processes with customers, and increasing customer loyalty, which identified the existence of diligence in Peter. He was also honest in his activities, as after he found out that the advertising market is saturated, he did not forcefully conduct selling services only for making a profit and maintaining his position. Moreover, patience was another virtue of Peter as despite having pressure from his hierarchy, he maintained patience for surveying the market in San Francisco in order to meet his required quota.

After receiving pressure from his hierarchy, Peter complained about his identified matter to the sales manager of his company, who, in turn, supported Peter for his honesty and identified issues in the advertising sector. The fact motivated Peter, who also thought that the only way to meet the required quota was to communicate with the existing businesses with the help of his sales team, which would help in customer retention along with having positive referrals from the satisfied customers.

• Risks faced by Peter

While making decisions regarding meeting the service quota of Peter through customer retention, several risks arose for him, which initially hampered his business. During the process of communication with customers to discuss their requirements of an advertisement according to their services, his business lost money while meeting these requirements, which are the monetary risks. However, the risk persisted only in the short term, as Peter and his organization were successful in gaining loyal customers through customer retention and customer referrals, thus benefiting them by making money in the long term situations.

• Factors assisting people in making moral decisions

Different factors may be associated with the good decisions-making process for people while they face extensive pressure for making such decisions, which can be considered below:

1) Moral philosophy: It is one of the factors assisting in making such decisions by people, as this is helpful in making decisions through differentiating between the correct and the wrong (Bigman & Gray, 2018). Though it is not always possible for people to make correct decisions while facing pressure, this may assist the process of decision making.

2) Moral development: This factor assists the process through morality among the people that emerges among them with an increase in experiences, behavior, and moral issues. As this is developed for a lifetime, this factor is useful in assisting in making moral decisions.

3) Personal factors: Different personal factors that are associated with individual behavior are also associated with influencing the moral decision making of individuals (Schaefer & Savulescu, 2017). As they vary in different people, different moral decisions are undertaken by them based on their beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and behavior.

4) Motivation: This factor assists the process through desire or compulsion for doing something or reaching any expected goal. With this desire, people can make various moral decisions, which can get intensified with the increase of pressure from any ethical source (Bigman & Gray, 2018).

5) Ethical tension: Such factors can influence the moral decision making of people in case they face tensions regarding the uncertainty of achieving something or getting advantage from something in future situations.