How I feel is none of your business

I hate this obsession with customer feedback. You can’t buy a pair of socks, use a cab or phone up about your gas bill without firms demanding “a little of your time” to flatter them about how brilliant their service was.

Even though you’ve often been hanging on the end of a phone for half an hour listening to Simply Red and pulling your hair out. I feel like shouting back “you’ll find out if I like you if I use you again. In the meantime leave me alone”.

This week HSBC sent an email asking “How was your branch experience?” with a link to a dozen questions about my take on having to, shock, horror, go to one of their real-life cashiers as I needed to withdraw more money than I could get from a cashpoint.

One question was “How could our staff have made your experience better?” To which I replied: “It might have helped if you hadn’t closed down the two nearest branches to me, meaning I had to travel six miles to draw some of my own cash out.”

I’m not expecting any feedback from them as that’s not how it works. They just want to tick a box that shows their shareholders the closing of branches was a runaway success because no-one’s kicking off. So give yourself another bonus.

It’s the modern world of business in a nutshell.