If we were to all analyse how we look at things, we'd quickly find out that the vast majority of us are naturally negative. (yes this does follow on from my last post, it's just how my mind works)

Put it this way. I e-mailed my bank's customer service department a few weeks ago. Reason why? The person that I rang and spoke to (on my day's off visiting my local branch is not my idea of fun) gave me fantastic service.

They were polite, prompt, friendly, did everything for me that I needed, and even things that I hadn't thought of. I was actually smiling by the end of a phone conversation with a service provider (which when you have BT Broadband as one of your providers can come as a surprise) but by the same token is something that you'd come to expect with the Co-operative Bank.

This post isn't intended to sing The Co-op's praises (though they deserve it) or slag off BT Broadband (though they really deserve it!) but it is simply to pose a question:

When did you last contact a company to complain, and when did you last contact a company to say thankyou or well done?

My prompt for this was the weekend just been.

We got busier then expected - MUCH busier then expected! A queue formed on drive thru at 9am, and with my team all in place for the shift, between us it took us 7 hours to reduce it to nothing.

We all ran all day, doing everything humanly possible to get our customers served as quickly and effieciently as possible. My team were under just about as much pressure as I could reasonably expect of them and it is in general a very thankless task when you're in that situation.

I spent a lot of time dealing with complaints - although I'll never understand the mentality of people pulling away the manager to voice their grievance about the time it's taking to get served when everybody is running, panting, including me. YOU SLOWED DOWN THE SERVICE YOU IDIOTS!!!!

To their credit, a lot of my staff take complaints about them very personally - which is a great quality in them - and are quick off the mark to defend themselves and explain in detail what they had been doing (although they always choose to do it there and then rather than a quieter moment, and not in front of the customer who then thinks that they're trying to undermine them)

But the point is that we are almost prepared for dealing with complaints: McDonald's is the biggest player in the market and there is an customer expectation way above that of KFC or BK to deliver a certain degree of service (which I'm not about to complain about, I expect good service whenever I shop anywhere)

So, at the point where I was at my busiest (I rate how busy things are from the number of simulataneous pleas for mercy from the kitchen) and I was literally running at this point, came the now all to familiar call,

"Are you the manager?"

My spirit was not feeling particularly strong at this moment. So I sort of whimpered "yes," whilst still running.

"I just wanted to say that the service I received was fantastic. Thankyou."

I was just in the automatic process of apologising when I realised what he said and stopped dead in my tracks. My shift was at full stretch (if not beyond) and we got praise.

When I told my team, in particular the person who served him, it made their day - seriously! But it would. You do expect a degree of recognition from your bosses, and they got that from me - in between pants - but to get it from one of the people who we are actually serving is a lot more special, because it's so rare.

But like I said, when was the last time you went out of your way to offer praise to a company? And when was the last time you were ready to complain?

Thought so, negative bastard!