Do you think of your consumers as clients or customers? I know I often use these terms interchangeably. Yet, I always think of customers as people who buy products. Since I don’t sell any products (yet), I always end up thinking of my consumers as clients.
But what’s the real difference?
I know there are a number of ways to look at this so let’s begin in the most obvious place, the dictionary. Dictionary.com defines each as:
Interesting. So by the dictionary’s definition, a client is a person who uses services while a customer is someone who purchases products or services. Does that then imply that clients are active users while customers are simply purchases – who may or may not use what they purchase?
So what would you rather have, clients or customers?
I’ve stumbled over these two words myself- using both in the same sentence, sometimes.
Although I know many people have a very commercial relationship to ‘customer,’ the word ‘customer’ has a lot of love and care in it- I grew up in a family who has a retail store- my grandfather had it since the 30’s, my parents have run it for decades, and I’ve spent a lot of time around it.
My parents’ relationships with their customers is long, long term in some cases. As an example they just put a tribute up in their display window for a long-term customer (30+ years) who had died recently.
I also think that the word ‘patron’ in the ‘customer’ definition is an interesting one: a patron is someone who gives financial or other support to a person, organization, cause, or activity (from the dictionary also.)
Mark,
Great story about your parent’s business. In general, it seems like customer is used for retail and client for service-oriented businesses. My guess is that this distinction has come about since we’ve moved away from small, localized businesses toward the big-box, national chains. Where before retail was local and about relationship, big-box chains have made it about price and less on relationship. This is one of those times I think, “gone are the good ole days.”
As retailer we have customers, but besides products we also provide a service (a good one we hope ;-)) Still we also see these ‘patrons’ (punters is another ‘confusing’ typical UK English word) as customers.
Our ‘customer’ parking spot on the forecourt (forecourt we share with two other companies) reads:
Wood You Like Customer Parking
Our neighbour’s (Accountant) reads: Client parking.
Hmm, always want to ask my neighbour if his patrons/punters are posher than mine? 😉
(Or is that a typical double Dutch English interpretation of the word client.)
Clients are those who come under your ‘Care Protection and Guidance.’ You’re not just selling to people. You’re caring, guiding and protecting. And hey, I found it in a dictionary too.
I found it in Websters. And wrote a whole article about it. And our whole business and teachings are based on the definition of the word client.
http://www.psychotactics.com/artwebsters.htm
Thanks, Dawud- it’s inspiring to me because although it sounds like the ‘good ol’ days’ -it’s not. It’s actually happening right now, this week, in Washington, D.C. at my parents’ store.
And that kind of interaction with patrons (I love that word, Karin H.!), along with a good email marketing campaign, and a blog-style website, has been very, very successful for them. They’ve held their own against the big box stores, and increased their profitability and sustainability in the marketplace.
In fact, I think more of that ‘good ol’ day mentality’ coupled with smart marketing structures that replicate the good ol’days and take it out into the webworld, could help grow the main-street mom and pop stores in the face of big box.
In fact, it occurs to me that blogs are actually bringing in the ‘good ol days’ in a new media format.
[quote comment=”2632″]
In fact, I think more of that ‘good ol’ day mentality’ coupled with smart marketing structures that replicate the good ol’days and take it out into the webworld, could help grow the main-street mom and pop stores in the face of big box.[/quote]
Mark, would love to meet your mom and pop! Although we’re not a mom and pop our selves, we’ve been ‘raised’ by old-fashion mom and pop mentality when it concerns dealing with patrons and have been able to translate modern marketing tools into it, not the otherway around. I think your mom and pop are of the same ‘calibre’.
[quote comment=”2633″]Clients are those who come under your ‘Care Protection and Guidance.’ You’re not just selling to people. You’re caring, guiding and protecting. And hey, I found it in a dictionary too.[/quote]
Sean, as specialised retailer our aim is to care and guide our patrons to our best ability to make sure they end up with the most suitable product for their unique circumstances.
so, I’m afraid your dictionary and me don’t agree 😉
Mark,
It’s wonderful to hear about your parent’s continued success against the big box chains. And it makes me sad that they are in the far minority. So many mom & pop shops have gone away because they simply can’t compete with the huge chains. Could you share more about their strategy…
Sean,
Great point. It seems like an easy definition for a lawyer, an accountant or a therapist. Their job is to care about your need, guide your decisions and protect you from yourself and others. I can see where that fits.
Karin H.,
Bravo. I fully believe that in business service beats out price. Not for everyone, of course. But certainly a good service-oriented business can compete with the huge chains if they care for their customers/clients/patrons in ways the big boxes can’t.
I’ve seen it with my own business where the services and care I provide often win out over cheaper, web-production businesses. And, they’re often not interested in the sustained growth of your business nor in taking a vested interest in your success. So I guess I’m a mom & pop business myself.
Dawud, thanks so much for the post. I hadn’t really thought of it like that before. I guess I’d want clients – people I can create long-term relationships with.
Okay, a little dictionary fun (thanks to http://dictionary.reference.com , and a little selective choice with the cut-n-paste on my part):
client: One that depends on the protection of another.
customer: An individual with whom one must deal: a tough customer.
patron: One that supports, protects, or champions someone or something, such as an institution, event, or cause; a sponsor or benefactor: a patron of the arts.
Hmmm… thinking about what you wrote in the “Superhero’ post (here), it makes me think that looking at a person as someone who is in need of our protection is very different than seeing them as “someone to deal with,” and very, very different than seeing them as someone who is a benefactor of our message, and therefore, their well-being is a cause we champion.
Interesting food for thought.
True — I wasn’t taught originally to think of clients/patrons (my two top favs at this point) as anything other than customers. It was Sean D’Souza (who commented above) who first helped me reframe this.
And, the more I look at all this, the more I see the wisdom in it…
Because the more we engage with people in conversation, the more the boundaries between us fall away. And in those moments, we are supporting each other — and so both definitions (client and patron) apply beautifully.
As far as the focus on patrons goes, it has been a discipline of mine to get used to framing everything in the light of, “What would serve my people the most?” Or when I go to create anything (from an article to a course to a product), to ask, “What is it that these people need? And how can I help them achieve it?”
The more I look through the eyes of my patrons at their situations, the more empathy and service naturally begins to flow.
How’s that?
Terry,
I hear you. When I think about it, my whole life has been about relationships. And I certainly find the relationships I’ve built with my clients to be much more rewarding then the money they pay for my knowledge and website services.
What do you do?
Adam,
Yeah, it is. Great comment.
It’s tricky to be client/customer/patron focused all the time. Tricky really because it’s not what we’re taught in the U.S. about business – or about life for that matter. I find that while I’m pretty good at being client focused myself, I still have trouble from time to time.
Is there anything you do as a check on your focus?
Adam,
That rocks! I agree fully with you. I think regardless of the terms we use, what’s important is how we define those terms ourselves.
Being fully client-focused is what makes all the difference.
Exactly! 🙂
I hear the terms differently, having learned the Jay Haley perspective in psychology graduate school. Haley urged psychotherapists to think of the people they see as “customers” and not as “clients” or “patients.” Your post made a distinction between “active users” and “purchasers.” The purchaser of my service is free to be as active or inactive as he/she wants. At one level, wanting him/her to “actively” use my service reflects an altruistic desire to help. At another level, it is narcissistic — and also irrelevant to my success in business.
GOOD health clubs have this balance down. If a customer wants great trainers, good equipment, and excellent classes, they are there. If all the customer wants to purchase is the image of belonging to a gym, that’s his/her business!
Barbara,
Perhaps irrelevant? Yet, do you think that how you label the people you serve tells something about how you hold them?
I like the word “customer” for its suggestion of a person who uses my services for his or her own reasons, which may not even by my business!
Barbara,
I still haven’t found a term I like. I use target audience, clients, customers, patrons, etc – but really only for the sake of communication.
It all depends on your industry, and the services you are offering. There is no right answer, sometimes you cater to clients, other times you cater to customers. Regardless, what allows you to create the most value for the client/customer and yourself is ideal.
The freedom with which the term “customer” is substituted for client has always irritated me. The word “client” comes from the Roman system of patronage. A patron had a client to whom he was like a godfather and on whom the latter depended. Therein is the key. A trouser vendor who calls his customers “clients” is simply being pompous. To qualify as a client, one has to be dependent on the person or organisation. That is why lawyers have clients and burger flippers do not.