It’s near the bottom of the list of life’s likeable experiences, somewhere alongside going to the dentist.

I’m talking about taking your car to be serviced.

Rightly or wrongly, I use the main Audi dealer, in Derby. They did me a very decent favour with a wheel problem once, and so I reward them with my loyalty, and – guardedly – I trust them.

Textbook customer service stuff. So far, so good.

Today’s visit started with a smile, not just from the service receptionist. The showroom sound system plays Radio 2, which this morning featured ‘Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz’.

This dealership gets a good rap on review websites, and I can see why. The team are (on the whole) very personable, they say all the right things when you book, they make a day-before courtesy call, they clean the car inside and out, and so on.

I will skim over their not so generous offer of a pair of wiper blades for £34, because something has to fund all the suits in the building.

But at the very end of an otherwise stress-free visit I was cheerily advised that I would get a phone call from Audi, just “to make sure that you were extremely satisfied.”

High value cars, no value feedback.
Why spend scarce resources collecting it?