(upbeat music) What are some common ethical approaches? Here, we will cover the utilitarian, rights, fairness, virtues, and common good approaches toward ethics with examples of how these approaches may inform your customer service standards. There are several different approaches organizations and individuals can use when it comes to creating and putting ethics into action. We will start by exploring the utilitarian approach. This approach involves looking at the consequences or outcomes of a decision. The goal is to create a solution that benefits the greatest number of people while minimizing the harm it causes. Using this approach means you think of everyone who could be affected by the decision and consider them all equally. When providing customer service, this could mean considering the customer, other customers, yourself, and your organization. Using this approach, decisions can be compared by looking at happiness versus suffering, individual preferences, financial gain or loss, or short-term and long-term goals. First, you need to think of every possible action you could take in a situation. Next, you should consider the benefits of each action, as well as any harm that may be caused by that action. Finally, you should choose the action that provides the greatest benefit in relation to any harm it may cause. Of course, the ethical approach is not perfect. There are some drawbacks. One drawback of this approach is the fact that everyone values things differently. This can make it difficult to determine the greatest benefit. For example, some people may value time more than other people. Some more people may place a higher value on money than everything else. You're sure to have both customers who prefer to save time and others who prefer to save money. These drawbacks clearly show that utilitarian should not be the only approach that is used, but it can still be used to help make ethical decisions.