When asked recently by a waiter if I was enjoying my pizza, I replied: ‘It’s great, thanks.’ But I was lying. It tasted no better than a £2 supermarket pizza, and I was further put off by a rather persistent fly hovering above the table.
While we’re all good at moaning – a reassuringly British sign as we head further down Brexit Road, and Donald Trump becomes the most powerful man in the world – we’re dreadful at doing it publicly or in a way that actually makes a difference.
But for the good of the financial services industry (and Newcastle’s Pizza Express), we need to stop putting up with the mediocre. In fact, accepting the mediocre has become a deeply entrenched threat to the financial products and services we rely on.
Consumer voting in the British Bank Awards is currently showing an 82 per cent overall satisfaction rating across retail banking, in large part because just being OK has become enough.
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