Clients and customers are two common terms that are used interchangeably in businesses. Although they are related, they are distinct based on what you are selling, product or service.
Knowing the differences between clients and customers can help you customize your strategies and provide an appropriate standard of service to each group.
In this blog, we’ll differentiate clients vs customers and how to acquire and retain them for business growth.
Client vs customer: Key definitions
Clients are individuals or entities that engage with businesses to receive professional services or advice. They often have long-term relationships with companies that build trust over time.
Clients usually receive personalized solutions and dedicated support.
Examples of client services
- Professional consulting and advice in areas such as management.
- Legal services and guidance for individuals or companies.
- Financial services like accounting or tax preparation.
- Health care services like patient care and medical consultations.
- IT support, technical assistance, and software development based on client needs.
- Marketing services and promotion management.
Conversely, customers are individuals who have occasional interaction with a business. They are often referred to as buyers, consumers, or purchasers.
While some customers and clients may have ongoing relationships with businesses, such as loyalty program members or repeat clients, many customer interactions often consist of a series of distinct transactions rather than a continuous, unbroken relationship.
These short-term relationships involve a customer entering a store or making an online purchase, completing the transaction, and potentially leaving without further immediate engagement.
Examples of customer service
- Restaurants
- Retail stores
- Supermarkets
- Groceries
- Online retailers
Differences between clients and customers
The terms “client” and “customer” vary in regard to different business aspects.
The distinctions between customers vs clients include:
Nature of engagement
Customer engagement involves short-term interactions that are based on transactions.
Clients focus on long-term relationships, personalized services, and continuous communication.
Business management
Client-centered businesses have dedicated managers to give personalized attention and guide each individual client throughout the customer journey. Customer-based businesses do not have dedicated managers. Instead, all their interactions are managed by support agents.
Customer acquisition
Businesses acquire customers based on marketing and advertising strategies that increase brand awareness, like commercials or social media ads. These tactics are costly and make customer acquisition more expensive.
Conversely, client acquisition involves simple approaches such as referrals, high-quality services, and networking, which are cheaper.
Formal business agreements
Customers do not need any formal agreement between them and the seller.
On the other hand, clients engage in long-term relationships that involve formal agreements that include:
- Summary of the agreement
- Terms of service
- Performance measurement
- Consequences
- Review and termination
Lifetime value
Clients are long-term customers who develop a relationship with your brand and help support your long-term profits.
On the other hand, the more customers you have, the higher the transactions and profit in the short run.
Revenue model
Client-based businesses generate high revenue and include a monthly billing program, which is essential for sustaining the business over time.
Customer businesses are huge and have low transaction value, and payments are made once products are bought.
Your business needs customers to survive well; you need to focus on attracting more customers.
The table below summarizes the differences between client vs customer meanings.
| Criteria | Client | Customer |
| Nature of engagement | Continuous relationship | Transactional relationship |
| Business management | Dedicated managers | Support agents |
| Customer acquisition | Simple referral approaches | Costly marketing strategies like social media ads |
| Formal business agreements | Require formal agreements | Does not need formal agreements |
| Lifetime value | Long-term impact | Short-term impact |
| Revenue model | Monthly billing with high revenue | Single payments with low revenue |
Importance of understanding the difference between clients vs customers
Understanding the distinctions between customers vs clients enables businesses to develop effective strategies to attract, retain, and satisfy them.
The following are other benefits you stand to gain from having client vs customer knowledge.
Build stronger relationships
Clients require more personalized attention and support than customers.
Businesses can invest in comprehensive support, consistent communication, and a customized solution to foster long-term relationships.
On the other hand, focus on product promotions, effective sales processes to acquire more customers, enhance seamless purchase experience, and guide them throughout their journeys.
Tailor marketing strategies
You can develop marketing strategies that highlight the value of personalized services and long-term relationships.
Utilize marketing techniques to reach more people and promote sales.
Optimize resource allocation
Clients have a long-term relationship with businesses and generate high revenue.
This enables businesses to allocate more resources to clients due to their continuous relationship, building a loyal customer base as opposed to customers’ time-to-time interaction.
Prioritize efficient customer service to maintain satisfaction and encourage repeat purchases.
Enhance customer satisfaction
Knowing the difference between customers and clients enables businesses to align interactions and services and exceed expectations to build loyalty.
Offer excellent customer service, resolve customer issues, and offer timely support to enhance the customer experience.
Develop effective pricing strategies
Consider pricing models that are best suited for customers vs clients. Since clients are offered special services like enhanced personalization and exclusive customer support, businesses may charge premium rates for these services.
Businesses can set affordable, competitive pricing to attract customers and maximize sales.
Effortlessly manage clients and customers with BoldDesk
Companies require modern software to be able to maintain relationships with customers vs clients and improve efficiency.
The software should enable your team to collaborate in real time, multitask, and automate repetitive tasks, among other things.
BoldDesk is the best cloud-based software for businesses seeking to manage customer and client support issues and improve productivity.
The following are some of the features that make BoldDesk stand out in supporting clients vs customers:
Robust helpdesk software
The BoldDesk helpdesk tool helps businesses handle support tickets and improve performance with the help of analytics to achieve efficient customer service.
It streamlines support processes with a smooth ticket management solution that manages client and customer inquiries.
Contact management
BoldDesk’s contact management system allows you to organize and maintain contacts and contact groups, along with their associated information, such as purchase history, customer conversations, and logs, in a centralized, secure location.
This enables agents to retrieve up-to-date customer and client information for personalized service.
Integration options
BoldDesk allows you to integrate with your day-to-day apps for streamlined processes. These integrations empower teams to create and maintain good relationships with clients and customers from a unified platform.
For example, you can:
- Integrate BoldDesk with MailChimp to send crafted marketing email campaigns to clients and customers for lead generation.
- With the Ringover integration, you can make calls to customers and clients, transfer calls, and organize and monitor conversations directly within BoldDesk.
Automation capabilities
BoldDesk’s automation tools helps automate various ticket actions to guarantee clients and customers quick resolution and ensure no support request ever goes unnoticed.
Users can also automate the following workflows for smoother, more efficient customer vs client support operations:
- Automated ticket routing
- Automated customer satisfaction surveys
- Ticket status
- Service level agreement (SLA) triggers and reminders
- Alerts and notifications
Reporting and analytics
BoldDesk uses built-in reporting and analytics dashboards to give insightful data. Managers can use the reports to assess support ticket volume, SLA reports, customer vs client satisfaction, among others, and make informed decisions.
The following are the types of reports and dashboards available in BoldDesk:
- Support traffic dashboard that tracks the inflow of support tickets.
- Support monitoring dashboard to track and analyze the status of tickets.
- A satisfaction survey report tracks response ratings as customers submit them.
- Worklog report that tracks the total time spent on each ticket by agents.
- The SLA dashboard provides insights into how a team meets SLA policies.
- Agent performance dashboard tracks and analyses the performance of the agents and groups.
Client vs customer: Master the difference for business success
Both clients and customers play a vital role in business success. Obtaining and retaining customers vs clients require different strategies to be put in place.
Acquiring customers speeds up your short-term growth and provides resources to support your clients. Retaining clients and customers can help you build an ongoing interaction that fuels long-term business growth.
Understanding how to acquire, handle, track, communicate, and interact with clients vs customers is important for business success. BoldDesk can do all this and more for your business.
Contact us to learn how BoldDesk can help you manage your client and customer base for business growth in the short- and long-run.
Book a 30-minute live demo and explore BoldDesk’s features. Start a 15-day free trial to learn how the features can work for your business.
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