Interestingly, Post Office customers in Wales and Scotland face shorter queues than customers in England.
The survey of 424 UK post offices found that 38% of customers waited more than five minutes to be seen.
The average waiting time in Crown Post Office branches and franchise offices, which are found in other stores, was down slightly, to four minutes 20 seconds, compared to the findings of the last similar survey.
Why should any business assume its customers will wait?
The Post Office may be a particularly good example and one providing a poor service experienced by all of us at some time or other. But it is not alone.
Aside from all their current corporate nightmares, our high street banks offer challenging service levels. And then there is the pantomime that can unfold at a railway station when you want to buy a ticket (before you even board the train).
The watchdog said queues were shorter when post offices had been franchised, such as in WHSmith.
Overall, customers in Wales and Scotland were in the shortest queues, with those in London and the north of England facing longer lines.
No surprises there. But what will be a surprise will be if the Post Office, and similar offenders in other customer facing businesses, do not act to cut queues.
* MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group
