Difference between revisions of "Michael's Projects"

Illich's vision of Convivial Tools could also be developed in the realm of customer service. The application of his ideas to commercial relationships implies customer empowerment, which is a growing trend in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management Customer Relationship Management] (CRM). One approach to customer empowerment, advocated notably by [[Doc Searls]], is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_Relationship_Management Vendor Relationship Management] (VRM), which aims to empower customers in their relationships with vendors. But VRM focuses on customer action, rather than looking at how the vendor or service provider relates to the customers.

From the vendor's point of view, commercial constraints always intervene to limit the amount of service one can offer. For example, telephone assistance is costly, so it is often made a paying service, or delocalized to overseas [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_center call centers], or is replaced by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVR Interactive Voice Response] (IVR). To imagine a limitless improvement in customer service in the face of real-life economic constraints, we have to go outside of the box of commercial logic with the help of an abstract ideal which I call [[Total Customer Service]].

The ideal of unlimited customer service is inherent in the marketing of a Convivial Tool. Designing a household appliance that its owner can easily repair implies designing the whole after-sales cycle, including long-term availability of spare parts, usable documentation and online assistance. But such services are costly and moreover tend to conflict with the commercial interests of the vendor. As the effective life of appliances increases, the sale of new models declines. In the long run you might even help the consumer to make their own tool, thus cutting the vendor entirely out the process. Traditional marketing seeks to make the user dependent, but the convivial tool or service seeks to make the user autonomous, which is risky from a commercial point of view.

 

To understand Total Customer Service you have to drop economic rationality and aim to save the world, rather than to make a profit. The closer you can get to this concept, the more you will be truly serving the interests of your customers - and of society as a whole. Social vision is the most powerful driver towards true customer service. The weakness of such a vision explains why Sarah Lacy found most of the 2009 TechCrunch start-ups [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/17/memo-to-start-ups-you%E2%80%99re-supposed-to-be-changing-the-world-remember relatively uninteresting]. An exception was [http://www.crunchbase.com/company/citysourced CitySourced], a start-up with a social purpose.