After a few negative customer experiences recently, I am beginning to wonder if all the service providers in the U.K. are in league with each other to provide equally perfunctory levels of customer service. Is there a conspiracy?

When visiting my bank recently to pay in some cash (The Halifax, if you are interested) I noticed that there were five tills in my local branch, of which two were open. A third till was ‘manned’, but the cashier was balancing his till. I wondered to myself why the tills cannot be balanced in a back office somewhere to avoid creating the illusion that there is an ‘unproductive’ team member on the counter. I also noticed that when a certain number of customers were queueing, a team member appeared, came along the queue and apologised to us for the wait, while suggesting that we might want to use the machines. I explained that I was not using the paying-in machine as it only took notes that were in pristine condition, whereas some of mine were creased. I kindly suggested to him that his time might be better spent opening one of the vacant tills, rather than talking to me. Of course, it wasn’t his fault – someone in head office who has never worked in a branch in their lives will have come up with that idea, no doubt!

I don’t know anyone who is happy with their bank (apart from Metro Bank customers) – it seems that there is a culture of mediocrity, despite the terrible press that the banks have had for the past four years, little seems to have changed. I happen to know that Santander have recently spent a fortune on customer service training, but I haven’t seen anyone raving about changes in their customer service standards.

It’s the same with communications providers. I left BT several years ago, and wild horses wouldn’t drag me back there. I have issues with Sky, and so that leaves Virgin Media. Now, their service is fantastic when it works, which is most of the time, but you try to get an engineer out when you have a problem. I know one of their senior managers, but it still took me a week to get my broadband sorted from the time I made the first call.

I believe the answer is for senior and middle managers to spend more time at the coalface, dealing with customers. That way, they won’t keep coming up with ideas that just don’t work for their customers in reality. I don’t mean meaningless ‘back to the floor’ exercises – I mean spending real time with their front line people and understanding how they can support the customer relationship which is what everyone in every business should really be doing!