Customer Affordability and Ethics in Australian Post-Paid Plans

This essay discusses the affordability of post-paid plans for Australian customers, focusing on customer relationships and Kantian ethics. It highlights the issue of customer trust in the telecommunications industry, where companies like Vodafone, Telstra, and Optus operate. The essay addresses complaints against service providers for high post-paid bills and unethical practices like hidden charges. It emphasizes the importance of good will and ethical communication, as described by Kantian ethics, in building and maintaining customer trust. The analysis concludes that telecommunication organizations in Australia must act ethically to retain customer loyalty and ensure the long-term sustainability of their post-paid services, as customers are increasingly opting for pre-paid connections due to affordability concerns and lack of trust.

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Management
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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The aim of the following paper is to discuss about the affordability of the Australian
customers for the post paid plans. The customer relationships will have to be discussed along
with the Kantian ethics. The concept of post paid plans has been somewhat a matter of trust for
the customers. The ethical considerations are very crucial in this perspective. The code of
conducts should be made properly so the organizations can earn the faith of their customers. The
service providers will need to ensure their customers that they can have faith on their post paid
bills as their business ethics depends on good motive only.
The main issue that has been raised during this factor is about earning the love and faith
of the customers. It has been seen numerous times in numerous cases that the post paid bills of
customers have come so high in amount that customers have gone on to file complaints against
the service providers. In the Australian telecommunications industry, there are many players that
operate effectively and very actively (Reichert, 2018). Some of these companies are Vodafone
Australia, Telstra, Skymesh and many others. Sometimes it has been reported that customers are
very unhappy with the National Broadband Networks of Australia- Optus and Telstra. Recently,
it has been reported that around 35% of customers within Australian territory have filed
complaints against Optus because they have been sending post paid bills to a high level that is
unimaginable (Reichert, 2018).
This is the reason customers are not happy with these service providers. These service
providers have begun to send some default bills to their customers because of their profits.
Actually it is a very unethical thing to do because customers generally have enough trust on their
service providers (Teulon, 2014). If this trust is broken, customers will go to use other service
providers and even use the prepaid connections. Until this faith is restored, it will be very
problematic for the customers to have faith in these service providers. The direct billing process

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has also been a matter of problem in this situation (Reichert, 2018). It has been recorded in the
consecutive years 2015 and 2016 that customers had been misled and this had affected more than
100,000 customers. There have been few problems with poor and inefficient customer call center
or issues regarding network coverage (Baron, 2018).
In this context, the perspective of the business ethics should be discussed. The Kantian
ethical consideration is one of the ethical frameworks by which this can be addressed. Kantian
ethics is a form of deontological ethics. The long-term relationships with between the customers
and service providers would only last based on the mutual trust between the two parties (Trevino
& Nelson, 2016). In the above mentioned cases, it would be very difficult for the service
providers to regain the trust. If the ethical theories are connected with this scenario, it can be said
that there are no reasons to act immorally in this regard. The concept of duty is an essential
factor in this regard. According to the Kantian ethics, it is only the good will that can be
considered for the good works in the society (Baron, 2018). The post paid connection for mobile
users is a very common concept and it is used in many countries all over the world. However, it
has been a problem for the customers to use the post paid plans because many discrepancies have
been found in this scenario. According to Kant, no other virtue than good will can be associated
with business ethics. Until the customers feel that service providers work with them out of good
will, it will be very hard for trusting (Stern, 2015).
Kant has specified that business organizations an managers should act ethically and
communicate with their customers out of good will. It is the duty of the telecommunication
organizations within Australia to provide them with perfect amount in their post paid bills.
Ethically they should not charge any hidden cost in their bills. It is because customers will not be
able to understand the real reason behind the extra charge that has been amounted. If this

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situation goes on for a long time, it will create dissatisfaction and unhappiness among their
customers (Stern, 2015). The final outcome of this may be the fact that customers will leave their
services and not come back. This kind of immoral and unethical behavior comes from the
telecommunication companies in Australia like Telstra and Optus because these service
providers lack the proper good will to serve their customers with good intentions. In this manner,
proper customer relationships will never be created (Bowie, 2017). The good will or good
intentions of the business providers are very much needed because they must compete with their
rivals. However, it will be very difficult for service providers to retain their customers for post
paid plans as customers believe they will not be able to afford such high rates. They will only opt
for pre paid connections (Weiss, et al., 2015).
In the concluding section, it can be said that Kantian ethics shows good will is the only
thing in the business perspectives that would lead the business organizations to conduct their
business ethically. The post paid connection providers have not acted ethically in the recent
times and this has hampered their business capabilities in a large level. The organizations in the
telecommunications industry in Australia therefore must learn to act ethically iheir business
environment to retain the faith of their customers.

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References and Bibliography
Ali, M., Alini, S., Wan Jusoh, W. J., & Adawale, A. A. (2018). Using Expectation and
Confirmation Theory to Determine Customer Loyalty among Postpaid Users. Indian
Journal of Public Health Research & Development, 9(11).
Baron, M. W. (2018). Kantian ethics almost without apology. Cornell University Press.
Bowie, N. E. (2017). Business ethics: A Kantian perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Reichert, C. (2018). Telstra cops AU$10m fine over direct billing | ZDNet. Retrieved from
https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-cops-au10m-fine-over-direct-billing/
Stern, R. (2015). Kantian ethics: Value, agency, and obligation. Oxford University Press, USA.
Teulon, F. (2014). Ethics, moral philosophy and Economics. Financial Economics, 28-8.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do
it right. John Wiley & Sons.
Weiss, J. W., Gulati, G. J., Yates, D. J., & Yates, L. E. (2015, January). Mobile Broadband
Affordability and the Global Digital Divide--An Information Ethics Perspective. In 2015
48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 2177-2186). IEEE.