ABSTRACT
One might ask, is it possible to be professional, yet unethical? Can an employee be trained on skills of good customer service and fail to behave ethically? Can employees even be trained to be ethical? This chapter delves into what ethics is in the context of customer service. It includes examples from an African context and argues that African traditional values and morals are the bedrock of ethical customer service. Ethics may broadly be defined as the accepted norms of conduct that guide behaviour in society. It is both knowing and doing the right thing. Ethical customer service is concerned with truth and justice and has a variety of aspects, such as meeting and exceeding customer expectations with fairness, courtesy, respect, honesty and transparency.
