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A customer is, in this day and age, anyone who uses a service. Although this
has its logical extremes – you will find few people who are overjoyed by the
idea of being a customer to a doctor, or their children a customer of their
school. Therefore everyone who relies on you to do a job that will have an
effect on their life, their job, or their use of a product is technically one of your
customers. Above and beyond that there are different echelons of customers –
internal and external, corporate and personal, regular and occasional. These are always people that you
will be well-advised to keep happy, so customer service is an important – indispensable, one might say –
element of any job in which you have customers.
If, for example, you work in one branch of a department store, and receive a call from someone working
in a sister branch of the same store wondering if you have in stock a particular item – one which their
branch has run out of, for example, then that individual technically, and temporarily, becomes a
customer to you. They want something and are hoping that you can deliver it. To do your job the way
one would hope, you will go to whatever lengths are possible in order to provide the best service
possible to whoever needs it from you.
Of course, the most regular customers tend to be the external customers who provide the "bread and
butter" of any business, the regular day-to-day custom that drives the profits and income of a company.
It is also these customers who will, by word of mouth and other means bring your business to the
attention of other potential customers. Their role in a business’s success is essential, and these
customers should be the immediate concern of any business. Ensuring that these customers are
satisfied will make the difference between success and failure for any company.
External customers are anyone outside your company that you interact with — not just the people who
buy goods or services from you. External customers are what can be considered ‘traditional’ customers:
They take our products and services and pay for them
They exist ‘outside’ the confines of our own organization
They are open to approach from our competitors
They may not always be dependent upon us for products and services and may switch away to
our competitors
Internal customers include anyone in your organization who relies on you for services, resources, or
information.