July 11 2007 Meeting notes
Conference Call Notes
Drafted by Joe Andrieu, July 11, 2007
IRC
- vrm at chat.freenode.net
Prior Calls
Attendees
- Joe Andrieu
- Dean Landsman
- Dan Miller
- Iain Henderson
- Drummond Reed
- Mark Lizar
Notes
Vacations
Looks like we'll be light on attendance for the next month or so, as the summer vacation season starts up.
Sprint?
What we are exposing is the conflict between what companies might see as quality customer service and what customers see as customer service that solves their problems. With Spring, the customers were seen as a nuisance...
There are a lot of examples in telco industry of "subscriber abuse", which we may see as human nature and--in terms of VRM--... Term plans and pre-payment strategies and wierd bills which are sometimes the sole means of communications with customers, really illustrate that if the solution that the vendor is trying to establish is longer retention and don't bother me... and the goals of the subscriber are short term contracts and low prices... maybe it makes sense to launch a volley of customer service calls to try to force them to dump you (and hence let you out of your contract).
It was surprising to see this gratuitous booting of customers by a company that is so seeped in customer retention.
According to a Seattle times: ~1000 customers (out of 50 million) some of which had history of extremely high customer service interaction for over a year (40-50 calls per month). The fact that Sprint was axing its own customers generated the press.
For many large companies, much of the customer base is unprofitable. So, from a CRM perspective, the profitability of a customer is critical. But if that is exposed through VRM, it could have all sorts of unintended consequences.
Unintended? But what leverage does someone have?
The opportunity is to match the user with the best option.
Some customers, if exposed in a VRM fashion, some customers would change their behavior. For example, if a customer had five unprofitable accounts and could learn that consolidation gives them one profitable account--with better service... that is likely to lead to consolidation, more profits, and more satisfaction.
But how will people be exposed to their options?
Ideally, when using a VRM approach, users automagically get the options presented. However, that will also mean that those who are missing the "right" reputation don't get the offer.
Some of the more user-centric options will help users find more and better options.
The Sprint story is that some vendors will reject customers for certain reasons. They probably made several efforts to turn these users around, to make them profitable, and if you can't... you let them move on.
Interestingly, the move by Sprint was a publicly orchestrated maneuver. They made this publicly on purpose, perhaps to send a message.
But perhaps these people were calling just to have someone to talk to.
Rehumanizing
Mark Earls' 'Herd' touches on the importance of man as a social animal. One of the thing we've been missing has been the social, human aspects of VRM, enabling rich human relationships in contrast to the automated analysis and profit maximizing of CRM...
If we can re-humanize instead of de-humanize, we'll be creating a lot of value.
Who does need VRM? and Why do they need it?
Are there companies that are seemingly logical targets?
Are there obvious good, low hanging fruit out there?
Who are the early adopters? What are their trigger points?
On of the things we've seen through the information age explosion is that there is money to be made in them thar Geeky hills. Geeks used to be uncool, but the Internet made them rich and hip. So you can sell into the geek world today in a way you couldn't 20 years ago. There are perhaps companies in that loosely defined area that might want to be a part of these.
Status
| what | who | when | status |
| ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| open id on wiki | david | no date | |
| static website development | doc, dean, joe, chris | no date | |
| group blog/RSS to wiki (venus) | doc | no date | up, talk to doc if you want to author |
| project VRM definition | doc | 1 week | still working on it |
| brainstorm Initiatives | all | ongoing |
Action Items
| what | who | when | status |