With favours amongst friends and family being such a common law of practice, it was only a matter of time before research was carried out in to the top five favour requests dreaded the most amongst friends. The most popular question asked, straight in at number one is being asked to keep a naughty secret. This is then followed in second place by ‘we’re moving house, can you help’, which came in above favours varying from asking to borrow money or asking if you can babysit.
A study was carried out by www.DeliveryQuoteCompare.com who are one of the nation’s leading comparison websites for all your delivery needs. They carried out the research amongst 1,912 women and men aged from 18 and over across the UK, as they wanted to try and discover which favours requested were dreaded the most when it came down to helping a friend out. Surprisingly, the results found that the British public feared being asked by their friends to help move home more fearsome then being asked if they can borrow money.
When our researchers approached the British public, they began by asking them if there were any favours that may be asked by a friend that they dreaded hearing. The response to this question was that 74% of people asked, which is nearly three quarters said that there were.
Following on from this the British public were then asked to choose from a list of multiple answers, the question that they would dread being asked the most by a friend. After carrying out the study amongst 1,912 individuals the most common dreaded favour asked was to ‘keep an explicit secret’, for example pretending that you didn’t know that a friend had been unfaithful. In second place the most dreaded favour asked by friends was ‘being asked if they could give a helping hand to move’, this favour came higher then requests such as asking to borrow your car or even to borrow some money.
The following is a list of the top five dreaded favour requests that the British public voted for in our study –
1. Keeping an explicit secret – 69%
2. Helping to Move – 61%
3. Loaning of Money – 55%
4. Loaning of Car – 48%
5. Can you Babysit – 39%
After the above study was carried out, the two thirds of the people that had answered that ‘Helping to Move’ was the question that they dreaded hearing the most as a favour from friends, we then asked them to explain the reason for this. The general answer was that moving days are extremely ‘stressful’ to everybody involved and it wasn’t there idea of a fun request from a friend, especially when they’d moved themselves so knew how bad it could be. On the other hand three quarters of the people that answered ‘Helping to move’ as a dreaded favour then admitted that they themselves had had friends help them out to move in the past and that this had put them off returning the favour in the future.
The British public that admitted that they dreaded being asked particular favours from a friend were then asked how they would then react if there friend did actually ask them the dreaded favour. 52%, which is more than half asked advised that they would say ‘No’, but the vast majority with 71% advised that they would make up some sort of excuse so that they didn’t have to help the friend out with there favour.
Out of the people that participated in the study who advised that they would say no to a favour request from a friend, 56% were male, which is more than half. Surprisingly the study then showed that only 11% of individuals would definitely help a friend who is in need of a favour, and it didn’t matter what the favour was.
We spoke to Daniel Parry who is a spokesperson for DeliveryQuoteCompare.com which was founded in 2009 and is an online transportation marketplace. As a company that deals with a variety of removals, couriers, vehicle transportation companies, hauliers and international freight forwarders we asked him to discuss the above findings, to which he advised the following –
“A good friend will always be loyal through thick or thin, however it would appear that when it comes to asking a favour this is the only uncertainty to a certain extent for the British public. Not many people like having to lend a hand, especially when it comes down to a dreaded favour request, but there are certain favours that are more dreaded to us in Britain than others. Moving day help is high up on the list of being most feared, which to us has come as quite a surprise.”
Daniel Parry then went on to discuss this further –
“What we found most surprising was that when it came down to responding to your friends favour, rather then being honest and explaining that you don’t want to do it, a lot of the public would rather make up an excuse to tell there friend for the reason why they can’t help. In response to this our advice to the individual who requires the favour would be to avoid any sort of situation that may become awkward and to then look in to seeking professional help. Instead of calling in favours with friends why not contact a professional moving company to assist you. There are a number of options available with DeliveryQuoteCompare.com which enables our users to compare free, no obligation quotes from multiple verified and approved transporters. With this in mind you don’t need to worry about if you have a certain budget that you think may be quite small as in the long run it will also keep that all important friendship.”