Since we all work hard on CRM strategies to leverage brand communication, let’s take a step back and ask ourself this key question:

‘Who REALLY controls the interactions between the vendor and the customer?’

THE CUSTOMER decide when, how and why he will - or not - interact with a brand… And this simple fact leads us to the most mind blowing marketing concept since the long tail: the VRM

The Vendor Relationship Management is the reciprocal of Customer Relationship Management. With VRM, the customer controls his or her relationship with vendors rather than vice versa. The purpose of VRM is to provide the customer with ways of bearing some of relationship burden which has in the past been borne entirely by the vendor. In so doing, VRM intends to improve markets by equipping customers to lead as well as to follow.

This theory tests the belief that any market can be truly free and open, and in control by customers as well as vendors.

ProjectVRM, at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, is working on tools and methodologies to provide customers with both independence from vendors and ways to engage with vendors.

This project is headed by Doc Searls:

‘In real markets customers do more than just consume. They can produce more than just money and data for systems that manage them’ Doc says… ‘What if we help vendors rather than just carp about them. What if we could relate on our terms and not just on theirs, for the good of both. What if we were to manage our own stuff and relationships with producers and vendors. What if we were in charge of our preferences across whole markets. What if what mattered most were our real intentions, rather than just our attention.’

So, are your interactions with your customer focused on transactions or relationships? A real relationship, and not just coerced agreements we call relationships. ;-)