We are all pretty quick to complain about poor customer service to our friends, family, and acquaintances, but how many of us actually give organisations a chance to make things better? How often do you say ‘no’ when asked to complete a customer satisfaction survey? Or how many of us fail to complain when we receive bad service or a sub-standard product?

This consumer apathy seems to fall into two broad categories. The first is the group of people who think their opinion or feedback will make no difference. Given a large enough proportion of these people, they are probably right. Organisations – like people – do not operate well in vacuums, and they require this feedback, both positive and negative to improve or create new products and services.

The second group are those who cannot be bothered to respond because they think that there are enough other people who will. It’s the same as road users who don’t call in a pothole in the road or a traffic light that’s out of order.

This seems to be a smaller manifestation of the ‘Not in my backyard’ syndrome. Everybody wants reliable electricity on a 24/7 basis, but nobody wants a coal-fired or nuclear power station near their house. People want the convenience of air travel but protest against the opening of a new runway at the nearby airport.

Of course there is the third group of people who take every opportunity to provide feedback to organisations that care (and some that don’t), with a view to making things better.

Which group do you fall into?