I travel to London roughly once a fortnight, and go by train so I can work. The line was run by GNER, but has been taken over by National Express.

Ticket prices are high and getting higher, and trains are always packed full of people. Some people end up standing having paid £140 for a standard class ticket between York and London!! (As an aside, if two people travel first class to London now, they'd actually save money by getting a chauffeur driven Mercedes for the day to take them door to door!)

My treat to myself is that I eat in the restaurant car, with a nice English breakfast on the way down and my evening meal on the way back. The food has always been pretty good, and the service very chatty and friendly.

But now it seems the cost cutting measures are coming in - and there's a lesson here for everyone in business. Even the smallest cost cutting gets noticed and breeds resentment. People aren't daft and know when they're paying more for less.

My breakfast today was described as a Full British Breakfast with 'Fried or scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, a grilled field mushroom, baked beans, fried bread and tomato'. Yum. It was £15.95, but I've got a busy day ahead, and it is my one treat after all.

When it arrives, there is half a mushroom. That's right, just half.

I notice that everyone is getting just half a mushroom.

Now, I'm in a cheeky mood, so I ask if its possible to have the other half of mine seeing as it was described as 'a field mushroom' (I'm no Victor Meldrew, I'm just teasing), and it turns out this is what they have to give us - portion control.

So National Express have saved the price of half a mushroom. I bet some accountant somewhere is very proud of that bit of portion control, and has the spreadsheet to prove it. But suddenly my breakfast feels less like a treat, and more like a con. It was just enough to turn me off the idea, and I'll certainly have it less, and maybe not at all.

So was it really worth the saving?

This is the problem with cost control. You're never actually aware of the adverse affect it has on your customers, and what you might be losing out on as a result.

It's much better to focus on increasing sales. The train was packed with businesspeople, but the restaurant car wasn't busy - so they'd be better persuading more people to try it and use it.

So remember, when your accountants start talking about your equivalent of giving customers half a mushroom, think of what your customers will think as a result - and see if there is a way to increase sales instead.

Your focus should always be on improving what you give to customers, and therefore making more sales for more money, rather than reducing what you give.