Client vs Customer: What is the Difference?
I’ve been using the words ‘client’ and ‘customer’ interchangeably for five years now (wow, it’s been five years already since I started my content marketing path, who would have thought).
The thing is, when you write about a business, you always need more ways to name people who are using your services or tools. It’s all pretty much the same for me — clients, customers, users, subscribers, consumers, you name it. Or is it?
Truth is, these two terms are indeed similar with the main difference lying somewhere between money and loyalty. My understanding is that the word ‘customer’ is more about a one-off operation which always involves money. On the other hand, the word ‘client’ describes something more long-term and ongoing.
In a nutshell, customer = payments, client = relationships. But it’s way more complicated than that as clients also pay money and customers also have their relationships with service providers.
Check out the article below for more details:
As a customer representative, I've encountered different types of customer terms such as customer, client, subscriber, and others. But does it really matter? Based on my preferences some can be interchangeable, the main difference is between the nature of the products or services that they have acquired.
Olivia Parker, Call Center Australia
OBP Call Center
Customers to me don't require 1 on 1 interaction, this could be ebooks or SaaS.
Clients doesn't always have to be long term. You can get clients on fiverr and the relationship could last for 24 hours.