Customer vs. Client

Every native English speaker is aware of the existence of two words: “Customer” and “Client”. Hebrew unfortunately has only one word “lakoach” which is used for both. Having said that Hebrew speakers have adopted the word “Klee-ent” (client) and even attach the Hebrew masculine plural suffix “–im” (klee-ent-im) for the plural. This goes a long way to bridging the client/customer lacuna, but many Hebrew speakers still have difficulty when choosing the correct English term.

Having said that, let’s try and create some clarity:

A customer is a person that buys something from a shop or a business. If you sell goods (consumer goods) to someone, they would be your customer. A customer would not necessarily get involved in a long term relationship with the business from which the purchases are made. Rather, this would be someone who uses one-off services – such as a restaurant, a store, etc.

A client is a person who uses the services or advice of a professional person or organization. In other words, a client could be seen as a more ‘formal’ type of a customer.

So the guy who goes to buy a loaf of bread and some milk at a store is not a client but a customer. But if you employ an accounting firm to ensure that your company’s books and submissions are in accordance with legal requirements, then you’re a client.

Usually there is an extended relationship between a professional services provider (a law firm, an accounting firm, an architectural firm, a consulting firm), whereas with a customer this relationship would be more likely to be a one-off.

There are nonetheless consumer brands which pride themselves on customer loyalty, but this loyalty usually takes the form of an emotional/ psychological connection and may be backed up by incentives offered by the company/brand to the customer.

There are indeed many differences between a client and a customer which are perhaps not obvious to non-native English speakers especially where the language/culture does not cater for these differences. Hopefully this will shed a little light on these subtle and not so subtle differences.