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"The more I think about it, the more VRM [Vendor Relationship Management] makes sense. If you think about vendor customer interactions as an arms race then you have to admit that vendors have invested
heavily in their weapons while customers are still playing with
slingshots. Time to recalibrate." – Denis Pombriant

"What makes [VRM] so compelling is what it calls
upon business to do. The truth is that the customer control of the
business ecosystem is just part of what actually has gone on with
consumers in the past three years or so. What may or may not have
occurred to you is that the change has been social, not commercial.  Customers are in command of their own destiny because they are humans with new ways to communicate with those of their own kind." – Paul Greenberg

photo credit: aidan jones

"There are clear signs that momentum is building for enterprise implementation of social networks as tools to improve internal communication and to deepen customer relationships. The growing number of companies offering private-label social network solutions, as well as IBM’s recent entry into the field with its Lotus Connections social software platform for business, is a sure sign of increased demand." – Nancy Davis Kho, EContent Magazine

"The more I think about social networks in the enterprise,
the more convinced I am that there are great business applications for
the technology. The networks won’t be ad based, though." – Bruce Richardson, AMR Research.

Indeed.  But, I’m biased. 🙂

Bonus reading: Social Networking for Businesses and Associations

Over at the Tom Peters blog, Steve Yastrow asks:

“What is a customer relationship?”

The definition that Yastrow finally offers is a good start.  Yastrow offers:

“A relationship is an ongoing conversation with a customer…”

(He later offers a longer version which reads “A relationship is an ongoing conversation with a customer…in which the
customer never thinks of you without thinking of the two of you.”  I think the longer version muddles the point a bit.  I also think the longer version is a little creepy, in a Sting/Police, “Every Breath You Take” stalker-y kind of way.  But I digress.)

Yastrow’s definition is almost precisely aligned with a post that I made here in 2005 (paraphrased: “A customer relationship is a set of linked conversations over time”), which itself harkened back to a conversation with Doc Searls back in 2004.

This is really important, critical stuff.

Creation of this type of customer relationship has a number of prerequisites.

• Actively listening to the customer – A conversation requires multiple parties be present and interacting in relation to quote to cash and other business and customer relations.  If you’re the only one speaking, it’s not a conversation.  It’s a monologue.
• Memory – Relationships are long-running.  They are not atomic points in time, like transactions.  As such, both customer and vendor need to be able to remember what’s been said and exchanged in the past.
• A long-term view – Relationships (typically) don’t have clearly defined end points.  A relationship is, in most cases, intended to be an ongoing concern.

This puts a responsibility on the vendor to track conversations over time.  But let me pose a question.  For you, as a customer…if you want a relationship with a vendor, how do you track your interactions with that vendor over time?  For example, how do you track things when you’re searching for a solution, or when you’ve bought something, or when you have a question or support issue?  Note cards?  Post-its?  Excel?  Simply “remembering?”

This issue becomes extremely relevant as we move into a VRM-enabled (VRM=Vendor Relationship Management) world.  Because if we want buyers and sellers to build mutually beneficial relationships, both need to be involved, and both need to be able to contribute their portions of the conversation history to the dialog.

photo credit: AyG

Tara Hunt writes an open letter to marketers:

"At every step of the way, I have to lament the fact that I was
missing yet ANOTHER item to complete my experience…yet…when I turned
around to seek out those items, NOBODY WAS THERE. Nada. Nope. Y’all
were too busy running around the interwebs sending unsolicited emails,
gaming Google search results, planting awful banner ads where nobody
wants them and setting up MySpace and Facebook pages that everyone
mocks.

You see where I’m getting with this?

Now, my buddy Doc Searls and a group of really smart folks have been working on this thing called VRM
(stands for Vendor Relationship Management), which gets at solving the
issue that I’m talking about. In basic terms, it puts the customer in
charge of when the vendor can deliver messages.

Now, I know what
you are thinking: “Customers in charge? What about ME? I’m trained to
get the word out there! Haven’t you ever heard of branding?” Yep. I’ve
heard of it and I also see it declining in relevance. Truly long
lasting brands are those who build RELATIONSHIPS with their customers,
who then go off and recommend them to others they have RELATIONSHIPS
with. Those pop up ads? Billboards? Television commercials? They are
just interrupting people, which ends up annoying them. Do you stay in a
RELATIONSHIP with someone you are annoyed with? Nope.

Believe me,
this VRM stuff is not only good for customers, but it is good for YOU
as well. It puts you firmly in the position of being exactly where you
need to be (available) when the customer has money in hand, poised to
purchase. It puts you in the role of helpful sidekick. It makes you
indispensably useful."

Read the whole thing here.

"Be open with customers. Be honest always, and let them
into your business. The huge upside to your customers “getting
involved” is that they will come with terrific ideas that will grow
your business and customer loyalty." – Kim Proctor

"We are about to witness the loud noise and mess that happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object." – Bernard Lunn on VRM (go ahead and click that link)

Cerado Haystack, our white-label social networking platform for businesses and associations, will be supporting Google’s Open Social efforts in a number of ways over the coming months (more on OpenSocial here).  In particular, Cerado will be:

1)  Enabling Haystack to be a container for Open Social apps
2)  Creating applications that leverage the Open Social API that can be embedded into other applications and environments

What is Open Social?  Well, remember all that buzz a couple of months ago when Facebook announced their proprietary API that allowed developers to create applications for the Facebook platform?  Now, that same notion can take place for any site on the web.  (By the way, Marc over at Ning sums it up well, and his analysis of the implications for FB are spot-on.)

We already have an Open API, and have been long-time supporters of efforts such as OpenID.  As such, we see the release of Open Social is a very good thing for the industry and, in particular, enabling better connection with information about individuals and their activity streams and creating a standard way to integrate that information with business applications (especially customer-facing ones) is a huge step forward.

Well done, Google.

As a  new blog, ComcastMustDie, has been set up by veteran NPR On The Media host and AdvertisingAge writer Bob Garfield.

Garfield writes:

"Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast or any other gigantic,
blundering, greedy, arrogant corporate monstrosity, What I do have is
the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways. This site
offers an opportunity — for you to vent your grievances (civilly,
please) and for Comcast to pay close attention.

Congratulations. You are no longer just an angry,
mistreated customer. Nor, I hope, are you just part of an e-mob. But
you are a revolutionary, wresting control from the oligarchs, and
claiming it for the consumer. Your power is enormous. Use it wisely." (emphasis added)

In a separate post, he hits it out of the park, and echoes the reasons for the existence of The Social Customer Manifesto itself.  Garfield:

"Partly because you [Comcast] have behaved so arrogantly till now, and partly
because the world has changed around you, you now must answer to a
Greater Power.

Us.

And we have demands:

1) You
will recruit a standing panel of customers to consult, brainstorm,
complain and advise you every step of the way — from your
customer-service practices, to your billing, to your programming
content. This process, within the confines of protecting proprietary
information, will be transparent.

2) You will host a website soliciting customer feedback of every kind.
In other words, there will be the customer-delegate panel, and a
mega-panel online. Don’t sweat the flaming you will take. You will also
get a) countless great ideas, b) a mechanism for locating and attending
to hardcore customer-service issues, c) a vast increase in customer
loyalty and goodwill, and d) a vast advantage in impressing potential
customers. If you’re smart, you will also cultivate a social network of
TV watchers of all stripes who credit you for your hospitality.

3)
Most importantly of all, you must recognize that none of this is PR
move you have to make through gritted teeth in extremis. It is a golden
opportunity to exploit the unprecedented potential of a connected
world. How ironic. You’ve been stringing co-ax for decades, yet you
don’t even realize what you’ve wrought. Yes, that’s right, you have
created the very conditions for all of us to band together against you.
At the moment it must seem like Frankenstein’s monster, but take our
word for it:

It’s Comcastic!" (emphasis, again, added)

Juicy, crunchy, wonderful stuff.  Go check it out.

Hat tip:  Andy Sernovitz