This document discusses the potential for customer relationship management (CRM) to focus on truly serving customers through love and empowerment, rather than just control and retention. It argues that CRM currently keeps customers locked in a client-server model where their data and control is held by companies. The document proposes that customer relationship management (CRM) needs a counterpart called vendor relationship management (VRM) to empower customers through tools and services that give them control over their own data and how they engage with companies. VRM aims to shift the balance of power towards customers and get CRM out of the controlling model to a more open, customer-centric frontier.

1. 1
CRM and VRM:
Towards an Inclusive Data Strategy
for Individuals and Businesses
Doc Searls (@dsearls)
6 April 2011 • SugarCon •

2. 2
FREEDO
MLIBERT
Y
INDEPENDENC
E
LOVE

3. Can CRM be about LOVE?
Hey, CRM has the word RELATIONSHIP in it.
Why the hell not?
3

4. If we love customers why do we
“target”
“acquire”
“control”
“retain”
“manage”
“lock in” and
“own” them?
This is the language of what?
4

5. Where is the love here?
5

6. Where is the customer here?
6
A focus is not a presence.

7. Yes, we can get social.
7

8. Here’s a simpler view:
8

9. What if all this stuff
is a bubble?
9

10. And what about these people?
10
They’re social,
but they don’t
use social
media.

11. Two problems/opportunities here:
1) “Social” is very 2010.
The next wave is personal. Really personal.
2) It’s not “Web 3.0 or X.0”
because the way we use the Web doesn’t support it.
In fact, it keeps us locked in command-and-control mode.
We can work around that.
11

12. 12

13. 13

14. 14

15. How do we get
a full shift in power?
15

16. Here’s one super-empowered
customer:
16

17. Super-empowered customers
want a few simple things:
17
FREEDOM
17
LIBERT
INDEPENDENC
E
LOV

18. Laurence Buchanan says,
Ah, but there is a
problem.
18
The Force in CRM is
the voice of the
customer.

19. Let’s go back to what
Cluetrain said in 1999.
Not just “markets are conversations.”
Rather, this:
we are not seats or eyeballs or
end users or consumers. we are
human beings and our reach
exceeds your grasp. deal with it.
19

20. The problem is, none of us
has one of these:
20
“deal with it” is not an option without one.
But, we’re building one.

21. Social media do help…
But they aren’t X-wing fighters.
21

22. Customers need their own
X-wing fighters. And much more.
Vehicles of their own. Tools of their own.
And new ways of engaging CRM
rather than just fighting it. 22

23. In our way is a problem
called client-server.
23
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
The Net is end-to-end and peer-to-peer.
But the Web is submissive-dominant.

24. Now think of client-server
as this kind of relationship:
24
Client
Server

25. In the Web marketplace,
it looks like this:
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more

26. Each company has its own set
of cow-calf relationships:
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more

27. CRM (and everybody) remains
stuck inside the calf-cow model:
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more
Server
Client Client Client Client Client Client
Billions
more

28. Online, customers have no more
power than sellers give them.
28

29. So, VRM.
29

30. 30
VRM is a counterpart of CRM.
VRM
CRM
It handles the customer’s side of relationships.
It provides ways for customers to bear their side
of the relationship burden.
It gets CRM off the ranch and into the frontier.

31. It started with ProjectVRM
at Harvard’s Berkman Center in 2007
There are now dozens of development projects
And the results are coming to market. 31

32. 32
With VRM, the individual is the point of
integration for his or her own data.
… and the point of origination for what’s done
with it.

33. 33
Here is some
of what VRM will do.

34. Write and execute code
outside client-server
This is what Kynetx does.
With open source on the SugarCRM model. 34

35. Give customers control of data:
35
0% 100%
Depth of
customer data
Degree of
customer
control
0%
100%

36. Give customers their own tools of
engagement with sellers.
36
Including the ability to assert demand and
name prices and other terms.

37. Add new forms of signaling.
Such as: r-buttons:
The red button on the site’s side is a signal that says,
“We’re open to dealing with you on your terms.”
37

38. 38
Issue a “personal RFP”
to whole markets, on the fly.
For example, send a message saying you need a 200w 220-
>110 converter
in Amsterdam on a Sunday afternoon
Scott Adams calls this “broadcast shopping.”

39. 39
Do self tracking
and personal informatics

40. Develop 4th
parties,
to assist demand.
40

41. So, for example, with hotels…
Fourth parties can represent,
intermediate, or otherwise help out.
41

42. Open Source Personal Data
Stores/Lockers/Clouds:
42

43. More VRM development projects:
43

44. VRM businesses:
44

45. Companies and projects talking
VRM in the last 2 weeks:
45

46. Tweeting panelists:
Me: @dsearls
Dan Miller: @dnm54
Drummond Reed: @DrummondReed
46

47. 47
0% 100%
Depth of
customer data
Degree of
customer
control
0%
100%