Spend most of day on telephone to large East Anglian insurance company, which covers our vans, in an effort to talk to someone about personal-injury claim being brought against one of our drivers.

After several attempts, am passed to someone in legal department called Kieran who is extremely helpful, and asks me to fax through entire 30-page claim. Spend another couple of hours attempting to do this until finally discover that both fax and phone number Kieran has given me do not exist.

Two calls later, I am assured by rest of company that Kieran doesn’t exist, either.

Most of day gone and absolutely no further forward. Might as well not have insurance.

With customer service uppermost in my mind, go into our own newly organised daily customer-service meeting. Gut (on which both Second-in-Charge and I have immense faith) has been screaming about this for some time. Receive report from person in charge and can immediately see that a) report is half complete b) that complaints are absolutely not being handled in the way I want and c) the person handling them is not coping with work load.

Particularly tricky one. We all like person concerned, who works like a dog. However, have also spent lot of time, money and effort trying to make them work in efficient manner and, several months on, that just ain’t happening. Have come to conclusion that hate giving less-than-perfect customer service even more than I hate losing money – though, of course, the two tend to link.

Resolve to somehow find time to work with them myself in last-ditch attempt to sort them out. Trying really hard to ignore fact that both Second-in-Charge and I desperately need some time off. Both are exhausted, stressed and have personal issues that need time and care.

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