Work from Home Stories & Tips

  When discussing marketing and selling, you will notice that I mention both customers and clients.  What is the difference?  The simple answer is none.

The term “customer” would normally be applied to a person to whom you sell merchandise, while the term “client” would normally be applied to a person for whom you provide a service.  I am not going to get into dictionary definitions here, but some examples should suffice.

If you have read my earlier posts, you will probably be aware that I actually operate two distinct and separate types of business.  These businesses help me differentiate between customers and clients.  My main business is hosting and designing Web sites.  The person or entity, if a company, for whom I do a Web site is my client.  I provide them with a tangible service but an intangible “product”.

My secondary business is selling merchandise.  Although this is also an Internet, or “virtual” business, I do sell products to customers.  The product may be sold to a person who comes to my location, or to whom I ship the product.  They receive a tangible product.

This should be sufficient to get across the difference between customers and clients; however, here is one more example.  Because some of my Web-site clients are real estate agencies, I can use their business to highlight the difference between customers and clients.

Although there are different legal arrangements you can get into with a real estate agency, let’s keep it simple and focus on the long-standing understanding of real estate services.  You have a house to sell, and contract with an agency to sell it.  You are the agency’s client.  I visit the agency to look at some houses they have listed for sale, and I become their customer.

TIP:  If you are a professional providing a service, refer to the people for whom you provide the service as your clients.  If you sell products, you sell them to your customers.  There are some business types that are in a gray area, and it might be difficult to classify whether you serve customers or clients, but this simple summary should help clarify it in most instances.