Customers or Clients?

Around our office questions get asked all the time. Some of the questions are very concrete, tangible. Some of the questions are nebulous. Some of the questions fall somewhere in between. After our MAS 90/200 User Group meeting last week, I asked our team if we had customers or clients.

I explained my reasoning as I had heard it described to me. When the people you do business with get specialized treatment, when the work you do varies, it is customized so you have customers. It is also the custom of the people you work with to have a mutually beneficial relationship (those business have a custom of paying).

Shari’s counter-point said the connotation attached to client is that there is a relationship and the connotation attached to customers is one of many. Clients have open and extended communications; customers exist in a queue, placing their order and moving on without establishing any memories or feelings. I had always imagined the opposite.

Esther shrugged and said that client had “I” in the middle. I commented that customer included “me” to which Esther responded that with customers it is all about “u” and “me.” Sounds like an argument for customer.

We didn’t reach a conclusion and I would really like to establish some common terminology. What do you think?

Use Your Reporting Tools

Spreadsheets are great for calculating interest but they are not an effective way to generate reports. Use your software. Today every business management software package has some kind of custom report writer available, yet many businesses are creating their business critical reports using Excel. Learning your system’s custom reporting tool and creating your reports using these tools will provide companies with huge return. Once custom reports are created, and all transactions are completed for that accounting period, then reports are generated at the touch of a button and the report contains actual data. Spreadsheet reports require too much time for data entry, possibility for data entry error and probability of formula corruption. Spreadsheet reports lack timeliness, integrity and the ability to reproduce historical reports.