Badge of honour?

Having spent Sunday evening and Monday at Independents Day in the midlands I was looking forward to the discussion following Monday's presentations.

 Monday was taken up by two main speakers talking about customer care and presenting the results of a mystery shopping exercise. There were many insights from both (up and coming soon in Optician) but one topic seemed to get the audience going; name badges.

Our customer care experts told the audience that the  evidence of 250,000 mystery shopping expeditions proved that in businesses where people wear name badges customer satisfactions levels are 12.5 per cent higher. Were the delegates convinced?

Well no, not really. Long discussions ensued about first name and/or last name, who should wear one, stalkers, the quality of badges, the staff would never stand for it etc, etc.