No, I'm not all right, actually

YOU'LL know by now, if you suffer my words regularly, that customer service is a bit of a 'thing' for me.

I am happy, willing and over the top in congratulations when service is good, but when it's bad I'm not beyond saying so – politely, I hope. But there seems to be a new form of so-called customer service that is neither bad nor good but which hovers somewhere around the middling muddy waters of insincerity – and it's almost worse than no service at all.

In my mind, relationships of any kind should be authentic. There doesn't seem much point in pretending you love someone, although it may, on occasion, be only prudent or sensible to pretend you like them; that's just good manners, courtesy and common sense.

Beyond the basics, however, what we say and what we do should surely be sensitively honest and designed to reach the person we relate to with genuine care and consideration. We should show genuine interest in that person; there's always more in it for us – let alone them – when we're not just thinking of the next thing we want to say or do.

So I deplore the new trend – mostly in clothes shops – of pouncing on customers when they least expect it, not with "Can I help you?" (to which I always want to say, "I don't know; can you? Depends what I need help with, I guess. You might struggle to shift my fridge-freezer so that I can clean behind it: but then again, you might know where the underwear is in your store") but a cheery, mass-produced, creosote- coated "Good morning" that is just plain insincere. I don't mean the normal, natural, "My Mum taught me good manners" kind of "Good morning", but the type that comes from Page Six of the company customer service manual and is so loaded with "It'll only be a 'Good morning' for me if you buy something" that it practically topples from the assistant's lips like a lifetime's supply of sugar lumps from a tipper truck. I mean, do 'they' really think we're so devoid of brain cells that we don't realise why they say it? If the utterance sticks at "Good morning" I'll usually give the benefit of the doubt, smile sweetly, say "Good morning" back – and mean it: or, if it's a bad day and I'm feeling like Kristin Scott Thomas in Four Weddings and a Funeral, I'll do the sideways, thin-lipped smile with "Isn't it?" attached.

It's when the enquiries get a bit more specific and personal that my hackles rise: when 'Good morning' is accompanied by a bright "And how are you today?" Of course, the customer service training manual (we're on Page Seven now) says that customers will only ever say "Fine, thanks." They will never say what I long with all my heart to say: "Well, I'm pretty c**p, actually." Neither will they give a blow-by-blow account of the fact that their feet are killing them, their piles are worse than ever and they've got the flu coming. I remember being asked "How are you today?" as I walked into Tesco about 20 minutes after I'd been given a cancer diagnosis. OK, so it wasn't the poor girl's fault I was having a bad day. How was she to know? She was only there to hand out wire baskets with a smile. But the temptation, out of my blacker- than-black humour ( it comes with the territory!) was to say, "Well, apart from a tumour the size of a flippin' plum stuck in my left boob, fine, thanks!" But that wouldn't have been fair, would it?

"How are you today?" is developing further however. Last week, alongside the usual loaded greetings, I noticed an eerie and increasingly familiar development in two stores. These assistants must have got to Page Eight, because not only did they wish me a 'Good morning ' and ask me how I was, but followed me around the store in order to ask, repeatedly, "Are you OK there?" and "Everything all right?"

Now, I assume they were checking that I could find the right size or item, or maybe they thought I was a celebrity, but I could easily have taken them at their word and responded accordingly: "No, I'm not 'OK here'; I'd rather be sunning myself on a Barbados beach, but I'm in Monsoon instead", or "No, everything isn't all right! My husband's left, the dog's dead and my car's a write-off." Of course, I didn't: but I can't help wondering what would happen if I responded genuinely to these enquiries. I bet even Page 10 doesn't cover 'dealing with a customer who answers you honestly'.

I am, of course, just a grumpy old woman. I need to lighten up a bit, remember that these poor shop assistants have a job to do and are just following company policy. I should instead imagine me, the customer, from their perspective and do everything I can to make their job easier and their day more pleasant. Maybe that's the best way to get genuinely good customer service.

Or perhaps I should try pouncing on them when they least expect it?