Questions we Can Help you to Answer

Paper Instructions:

Our business partner in your start-up has emailed all of the employees, asking them to write glowing reviews about the product on online shopping and social media sites. You are worried about how this will affect the company in the long run, so you decide to send a second email to all of the employees about this. How will you word the email to discourage employees from posting fake reviews, without making your partner look bad?

Knowing how much online product reviews can shape consumer behavior, the other cofounder of your company has just sent an internal email message with the not-so-subtle hint that everyone in your small startup should pose as happy customers and post glowing reviews of your new product on Amazon and other shopping sites.  You’re horrified at the idea –not only is this highly unethical, but if (or more likely when) the scheme is exposed, the company’s reputation will be severely damaged.

As you know from your understanding of media selection, this situation should be addressed in a private conversation; however, since your partner has already emailed everyone, you have no choice but to also email everyone in the company before anyone acts on the suggestion. Write a response, explaining why this is a bad idea and telling employees not to do it. Keep in mind that you are chastising your business partner in front of all of your employees. Because this is a hypothetical situation, you may make up information as needed to complete the assignment. Just be careful that the information that you make up is reasonable and is limited to what you need to write the assignment to your standards.