Ask any company who its primary stakeholders are and customers are likely to be high up the list. But the fair treatment of customers has not to date been a major focus for corporate responsibility teams, which have concentrated on areas such as environmental impacts and ethical sourcing.

Things are changing, however. Mounting pressure over marketing and sales strategies in sectors such as energy and mobile phones and high-profile cases of mis-selling in the financial services market have put the spotlight on whether companies are treating customers fairly. Corporate responsibility professionals should have a valuable contribution to make here. Poor sales practices – whether stemming from isolated human error or ill-devised strategies – expose companies to reputational risk, while decisions about how to market and sell products involve ethical judgments.

So as customer care becomes an area of ethical exposure for companies, it is fair to ask what corporate responsibility teams are doing in this area. The immediate answer appears to be not enough, but the reason why is a more complicated question. It seems that many corporate responsibility teams would like to be more closely involved in customer relations but for a variety of reasons are not.

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