When People-Based CRM Might Help Customer Service
One of the joys of being married (or indeed of having a partner with whom you share your life) is that you get two sources of insight into the experience of customers - your own and your partner's. I have used my partner's retail experiences before in this column, and they seem to have been well received. So I'll do it again. Rather than recount it, let me show you the letter I just sent to Sainsbury.

Here it is, with certain personal identification items deleted.

The Director of Customer Service
Sainsbury's
33 Holborn
London EC1N 2HT

Dear Sir/Madam,

Today my wife was subjected to the most disgraceful treatment in your XXXX Store.

When she was asked to sign her Sainsbury's credit card slip, the person at the till compared the signature with the card. The card had a clear signature on it. My wife had recently received a new card because the signature on the old one was faint from so much use - we spend between £1000 and £2000 a month on the card. She called the supervisor.

The supervisor came and asked my wife in a loud voice to re-sign, because her signature did not match the signature on the card. She re-signed. The supervisor was still not satisfied. My wife produced her bank debit card to show her that the signature matched. My wife was made to sign five times in total until the signature satisfied the supervisor. There were many onlookers, including a neighbour and a charity-worker colleague of my wife's.

My wife is YY years old. She suffers from osteoporosis and arthritis and has a weak hand and wrist due to inflammation, so her signature can vary slightly. Further, she visits the store once or twice a day and is well known to many of the staff. On her way out she met a supervisor she knew and was about to tell her what happened when the other supervisor came up and asked my wife "Are you going to tell her?" My wife replied "Yes" and told the story. My wife was very upset and left the store. She felt that she had been treated like a criminal.

The bill was for £3.99! We have been Sainsbury's Visa Card holders for many years and regular Sainsbury's customers for decades.

My wife suffers from over-anxiety, and felt very bad for the rest of the day.

My wife is very angry about the treatment she received. There is obviously a problem with your training and/or management of supervisors. The obvious thing to do is to ask a customer whose signature is doubted whether she is regular and known to staff in the store, particularly as being a Sainsbury's credit card customer is a fair indicator that she is a regular customer.

My wife thinks that the name of the supervisor who mistreated her was XXXX. My wife cannot see very well and so was not sure about the name badge.

Paradoxically, when her signature was faint on the old card, she was never asked to resign!

We look forward to hearing how you have dealt with this matter.

Yours faithfully,

(Name supplied)

P.S. I am well aware of the problem of credit card fraud and also of the imminent introduction of PINs to obviate the need for signature. The issue is a human relations one, not a technical one.

The question I'd like to ask readers is a simple one. Was it right for me to suggest to Sainsbury's that the problem was a training one? Is it sensible to suggest that the supervisor might look at the Sainsbury's credit card and the Nectar card and ask a sensible question rather than grilling my wife in front of the onlookers?

And is the general point correct? That CRM in people-service environments is first and foremost about how people manage people, and only secondarily about systems and processes?

Please tell me what you think! Email wnim@cim.co.uk with your views.