RELEASE: British society secretly incentivises moaning

A bold new report into life in modern Britain has revealed evidence of a nation of complainers and a shocking tendancy to incentivise negative feedback across all aspects of society. The survey, carried out exclusively for press release blog thepressreleased.co.uk, asked a range of consumers for their opinions on life in modern Britain.

Asked about their customer service experience 75% of those surveyed admitted they only ever completed feedback forms after negative experiences. Yet the report found that the urge to complain is further encouraged by a universal willingness to reward bad feedback - of the instances reported 80% of negative complainers received some form of reward or compensation whilst a mere 10% of those who fed back positively received anything.

One recent traveller captured the sentiment perfectly: "I filled in both a complaints form and a compliments form on my airline's website after the trip to Argentina. My complaint was replied to within hours with a detailed response, some positive action and even some future discount. I haven't heard anything about the compliment!"

The survey suggested the experience was almost universal with a wide range of firms jumping to reward those who complain but having little to say to positive feedback. Customer relations expert Jerry Daykin added that, "on the face of it a customer can go onto a store's website, make a complaint and be immediately seen to - or they can fill in a survey of their positive experience and have a 1 in 10,000 chance to win an iPod!"

"It's a difficult situation for firms who are keen to protect their brand image but perhaps it's time they started doing more to reward customers who tell them what they're doing right! Identifying and rewarding positive brand ambassadors may be tricky but the end results could make it well worthwhile!"

The report's experts predict that if nothing is done to reverse this trend positive words such as 'good', 'impressive' and 'recommend' may fall completely out of usage within the next two generations.

The report 'A slice of modern British pie' went on to further report that the average queuing ability in Britain had fallen 20% over the past decade. They based their conclusion on a normalised index of consumer perceptions and a 10 minute observation in Whitechapel Sainsburys.