I should stop hitting on Demos, I know. Actually, I narrowly stopped myself having a mini-rant about them yesterday in relation to their 'work' on the Olympic legacy. Today's post on the Greenhouse is about Pret-A-Manger's customer service and what public services may or may not be able to learn from them. Frankly, I'm scared by anything public having anything to do with Pret. Has everyone forgotten how Pret is basically owned by McDonalds? and even before that, how we all hated the amount of mayonnaise on all their sandwiches? am I the only dinosaur who still refuses to eat from Pret, or in my absence, has everyone gone back to their sticky crawfish-and-rocket sarnies?

The Demos post refers to Pret as having a "massive culture of loyalty, respect and satisfaction from their customers". Well, maybe it does. But isn't the important difference between a private company and a public service that a private company's customers choose to use it. Pret's customers may be incredibly loyal and satisfied, but those that hate it simply stay away. So in this respect, I don't really see the link to "the growing emphasis on personalised public services" - Pret is not at all personalised, it is a standardised chain and one-size-fits-all or else you go elsewhere. Now, we don't want that for our public services, do we.