Customer
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A customer, also client, buyer or purchaser is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, mostly called the supplier or seller. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services. However in certain contexts the term customer also includes by extension anyone who uses or experiences the services of another.
The word derives from "custom," meaning "habit"; a customer was someone who frequented a particular shop, who made it a habit to purchase goods of the sort the shop sold there rather than elsewhere, and with whom the shopkeeper had to maintain a relationship to keep his or her "custom," meaning expected purchases in the future.
The slogan "customer is king" or "customer is god" or "the customer is always right" indicate the importance of customers to businesses - although the last expression is sometimes used ironically.
However customer also has a more generalised meaning as in customer service and a less commercialised meaning in not-for-profit areas. To avoid unwanted implications, in some areas such as government services, community services and education, the term customer is sometimes substituted by words such as "constituent" or "stakeholder" to address concerns that the word "customer" implies a narrowly commercial relationship involving the purchase of products and services. Some managers in this environment however, comfortably use the word customer in the sense used in talking about customer service to both internal and external customers where the emphasis is on being helpful to the people one is dealing with rather than commercial sales. These issues are addressed from the perspective of commercial products (or their users) such as Raisers Edge for fundraisers, RightNow or PeopleSoft CRM in articles such as:
- RightNow - Communicating with Constituents: High-ROI Technology for Government
- RightNow for Higher Education
- The Constituent (Redefined)
- PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM for Higher Education
- Transforming the Federal Government: Strategies and Approaches for Constituent Relationship Management (CRM)An Oracle White Paper April 2003
- Retention intentions; when it comes to keeping students happy and productive, constituent relationship management is shaping up into a high-tech, high-touch tag team.
[edit] See also
- "Customer" - definition which states that a customer is also "a person who [...] patronizes, an establishment regularly"
- Consultative selling
- Customer service
- Customer centricity
- Customer relationship management
- Customer data integration
- Guided selling
- Service level agreement
- Customer Service
