Re: [projectvrm] A @United #VRM story with a happy ending

[Iain Henderson < >]

Hi Doc,

I’m reminded by the ‘back in the day’ comment of the early days of CRM, and 
how things went in the wrong direction.

My re-collection (from mid 90’s) is that CRM emerged as a technical 
capability to make marketing, sales and service run off of the same 
underlying database as opposed to their prior silo’s. The premise of the 
original exponents was much driven by the upsides for the customer: more 
relevant messages, better engagement and pro-active, human powered service. 
If that was what was actually implemented, then we’d have a lot less to 
discuss on this list. The problem was that many of the really big 
implementations came in just as the dot com crash happened. Accountants 
realised that the same tech could be used to move service offshore and/ or to 
the web - making it a much poorer experience along the way than the original 
thinking. i.e. CRM became a cost-cutting mechanism rather that a 
customer-upside generator.

As I see it, that set of circumstances took CRM in a negative direction, 
shrinking it down to Sales Force Automation and that dodgy customer service.

The recent trend around CX, CE and whatever C comes next are largely around 
taken it back to the original promise - with a little help now from the 
networked customer as you suggest.

Cheers

Iain




> On 14 Jan 2015, at 22:35, Doc Searls 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> Because back in the day service wasn't networked. Now it is, or could be, 
> and we need ways to take advantage of that.
> 
> Doc
> 
>> On Jan 14, 2015, at 8:18 PM, Philip Browning 
>> <
 >
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> Back in the day wasn’t this just called good old fashion service? So why 
>> are we talking about it today?
>>  
>> From: Doc Searls 
>> [mailto:
 ]
>>  
>> Sent: Thursday, 15 January 2015 12:27 AM
>> To: ProjectVRM list
>> Subject: [projectvrm] A @United #VRM story with a happy ending
>>  
>> A post on what happened at Heathrow yesterday: http://bit.ly/1yiq0Y9
>>  
>> Tweeted here: https://twitter.com/dsearls/status/555298042568769536
>>  
>> The text of the post:
>>> A @United #VRM story with a happy ending
>>> Yesterday I left my iPad on a United airplane and got it back. How it 
>>> happened is a story of sCRM (social Customer Relationship Management) and 
>>> VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) at work.
>>> The flight was United 934 from Los Angeles to London. When I arrived at 
>>> around 11am, I did my usual checking around my seat for things easily 
>>> lost and forgotten: my wallet, passport, earphones, camera, lens cap, 
>>> phone, iPad, USB and AC power cables and so on. And, as always, I looked 
>>> under and around the seat and in the seat pocket in front of me.
>>> Where I failed was with the seat pocket. The iPad is a new-ish one (an 
>>> Air), which is much thinner and lighter than my old one (the original 
>>> model). It was stuffed with thicker magazines, barf bag, Sky Mall and so 
>>> on, in the pocket-within-the pocket. I didn’t see or feel it when I 
>>> looked in there. It wasn’t until I got to London and set up my laptop and 
>>> other gear that I realized I had forgotten it.
>>> After going through about ten minutes of self-recrimination for my 
>>> stupidity, I called United and got walked through the process of filing a 
>>> lost item report, deep inside the company website. Then I called 
>>> Heathrow’s lost & found number, which (it turns out) is an independent 
>>> contractor that works only with certain airlines and terminals. United 
>>> and Terminal 2 are not among them. Then I fired up my FindMyiPhone app, 
>>> but alas the iPad was offline. (It’s a Verizon/CDMA model, while all my 
>>> other cellular devices are T-Mobile/GSM, so it won’t work outside North 
>>> Amercia; so it’s Wi-Fi only.)
>>> Then I went on Twitter and started this exchange:
>>>>    • Doc Searls ‏@dsearls 19h19 hours ago
>>>> @United just left my iPad at Seat 31k of UA 934 at Heathrow. Can you 
>>>> have somebody check on it before the plane turns around? Thanks! #vrm
>>>> 
>>>>    • United ‏@united 18h18 hours ago
>>>> @dsearls (3/3) turned in. They checked with the supervisors. This link 
>>>> http://bit.ly/1y7rCHq  can also help. Hopefully it turns up.^CA
>>>> 
>>>>    • Doc Searls ‏@dsearls 18h18 hours ago
>>>> @united Thanks for your help. I’m at LHR now and I’m told it’s found. 
>>>> Awaiting delivery. #vrm
>>>> 
>>>>    • United ‏@united 18h18 hours ago
>>>> @dsearls Great news..I had them looking for it. Thanks for flying with 
>>>> us. Happy New Year.^CA
>>>> 
>>>> 6:45 AM – 13 Jan 2015 · Details
>>> Between #2 and #3, my wife said “Go out there.” This had worked for her a 
>>> few years back when she forgot her carry-on bag in a shuttle van from 
>>> Logan Airport in Boston. Se went out there and got help from lots of 
>>> friendly human beings — especially the police, with whom she sat watching 
>>> video cameras, live, to spot the van in which she left the bag.
>>> I had the same good luck at Heathrow.
>>> When I got there I went to the check-in kiosk in front of the United 
>>> counter at Terminal 2, where a pair of kind young professionals 
>>> immediately went to work helping me after I told them my flight and seat 
>>> numbers. The woman looked up the flight and the gate, got on her phone 
>>> and called somebody she knew who was in a position to locate the iPad. 
>>> (I’m assuming this person was at the gate, but I don’t know for sure.) 
>>> After a few minutes of conversation, she said, “We’ve got it,” and told 
>>> me it would take about 45 minutes to ferry it in from the gate. After 
>>> about that much time, her male co-worker brought over the iPad, had me 
>>> punch in the code on the front (to make sure it was mine), and I was on 
>>> my way.
>>> The VRM part of this was all human, and depended on the good will (and 
>>> available time) of the people involved. The only facilitating system in 
>>> place was cellular telephony. @United’s lost & found, and sCRM system 
>>> might have brought back the iPad in the long run, what worked was 
>>> face-to-face interaction.
>>> Is it possible to scale that? I think so, but we can’t depend on vendors 
>>> alone to do the scaling. In fact, I think they’ve gone as far as they 
>>> can. (In @United’s case by monitoring social media closely, with human 
>>> beings.)
>>> We need standardized tools on the individual’s side — first person 
>>> technologies — that scale across multiple vendors. (In this case, for 
>>> example, across United, Heathrow and public safety systems.)
>>> I have thoughts on specifics here, but before I get into them, I’d like 
>>> to hear what readers say. (I’m also late for a meeting.)
>> Feel free to reply here, there, on Twitter or wherever.
>>  
>> Doc
>>  
>> No virus found in this message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 2015.0.5645 / Virus Database: 4260/8927 - Release Date: 01/13/15
> 

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