Organisations should embrace VRM with open arms

To attract and retain customers in the future organisations will need to facilitate a 2way relationship with their customers. One in which the customer has access to information held about them so that they are confident that it is accurate and appropriate. With such trust the customer can provide their preferred suppliers with access to their data (e.g. contact details) so that, without any effort by the customer, all changes and updates are accessible - write once, use many.
VRM allows individuals to invite vendors to respond to their stated 'wants' rather than trying to predict from past buying patterns. Customers are increasingly frustrated by irrelevant spam and junk mail which uses this shotgun approach. VRM allows companies to move from the attention economy to the intention economy.
We were advocating this back in 2006 - see the article here.