In marketing and communications (advertising, PR, events, etc.) the "Customer Journey" is a big deal to clients and agency-types. It's intention is to go beyond demo and segmentation and "get closer" to the customer to understand their behaviors (aggregate), needs (aggregate), wants (aggregate), patterns (aggregate) to better understand them, evolve product and most importantly, target them where they are and interrupt them.
There is a ton of research (surveys, interviews, focus groups, experiential journaling, etc.) that goes into developing that Customer Journey but it is still n=1 in the hopes to understand "all". Nowhere in the "journey" itself is there a moment where the user is actually a participant. They are always the object in the crosshairs.
The intention is to get marketing/comms more aligned with the consumer to generate better #s (CTRs, 800# calls, rebate cards, etc.) via narrative and context. It works. Getting .07% click-through-rate vs. an average of .04% CTR is considered a job well done.
Don has a big point here - customer service and marketing *should* be part of the same org. In some companies it is. In others the marketing folks don't want to be within 100 miles of CS. It isn't sexy, it isn't fun, and who wants to deal with complaints all day?
VRM won't end this practice. VRM will be a profound contrast to it.