My week in Bahrain has shown why Britain is going down the pan
All he needed to say was 'I'll be with you shortly'. Not too hard, right?
I'd been sitting alone at a bar in Oxford for a good ten minutes when the waiter walked past me twice, just across the counter, without so much as a nod. So, I overcame my British reserve and fear of bothering anyone and asked him if I could order a drink.
There was an awful pause. Hostile, it was, followed by a look that said: 'What did you say, slimeball?'. Then finally he uttered a pointed: 'Do you mind? I'm busy'.
British customer service can be excellent. And it's tough to generalise. But I'll give it a go and suggest that the instances where it's awful are now more common. The surly ones are getting surlier. The rude ones are more vile. The aggressive ones are more hostile, like the barber whose look when I asked for a scissor cut (as opposed to an electric razor trim) was like I'd told him he was fat, ugly and destined for failure.
This isn't my speculation. UK customer satisfaction is at its lowest for a decade, according to the Institute of Customer Service, and falling. In fact, it's only when you leave our shores for a few days, as many are now doing, and go some place with outstanding service, in shops, banks, hotels, you name it, that you realise just how far we've sunk. I'm in Bahrain on business for a couple of weeks, and the contrast is utterly chasmic.
Now, okay, I know what some will say. They'll say that the Middle East has a terrible human rights record, with negligible worker protection. Of course, you'll get outstanding service when your average worker has no recourse to union backing, earns a pittance and risks being booted out on a whim.
That certainly can be true, despite big advances over the last decade. But if Bahrain can learn from us about rights, we sure could learn from them about responsibilities towards customers. I don't mean anything unctuous, overly familiar or obsequious. I just mean a sense that your customer matters. Like greeting them with graciousness, helpfulness and civility, which is commonplace in this little island. A friendly smile hurts no one. Tell that to my barman in Oxford and he'd chin you.
But in Britain the overall standard is lower, and you still get Basil Fawlty horrors. Like the restaurant near me with a waiter who treats you like an inconvenient dolt. Yet even he's a stroll in the sunshine compared with the owner, until recently, of a pub a short drive away.
This man was one of the most colossally rude and aggressive human beings I've encountered. He was so hostile (almost physically) to some children that I took to TripAdvisor to pen a review that went as far beyond utterly stinking as I could muster. Not that he seemed to care. In his comment underneath, he called me 'a lying numpty'. Classy.
Yes, we in the UK have a lot to learn about service. That nothing-is-too-much-trouble culture in Bahrain translates, in extreme cases in the UK, to a don't-push-your-luck-sunshine feel. Is it because we must all be oppressed victims? Is it too much emphasis on rights, and not enough on responsibilities? Whatever. The trouble is, it's getting worse.
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