customer [Origin: custom; from the custom of doing business in a particular place]

In sales, commerce and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for money or some other valuable consideration.

Early societies relied on a gift economy based on favours. Later, as commerce developed, less permanent human relations were formed, depending more on transitory needs rather than enduring social desires. Although such distinctions have no contemporary semantic weight, certain (short term) sectors prefer client while more stable, repeat business operations tend to prefer customer.

The term client is derived from Latin clientem or clinare meaning "to incline" or "to bend", and is related to the emotive idea of closure. It is widely believed that people only change their habits when motivated by greed and fear. Winning a client is therefore a singular event, which is why professional specialists who deal with particular problems tend to attract one-time clients rather than regular customers.

Clients who habitually return to a seller develop customs that allow for regular, sustained commerce that allows the seller to develop statistical models to optimize production processes (which change the nature or form of goods or services) and supply chains (which changes the location or formalizes the changes of ownership or entitlement transactions).

In the 21st century customers are generally categorized into two types:

• an entrepreneur or trader (sometimes a commercial Intermediary) - a dealer who purchases goods for re-sale.
• an end user or ultimate customer who does not re-sell the things bought but is the actual consumer or an agent such as a Purchasing officer for the consumer.

A customer may or may not also be a consumer, but the two notions are distinct. A customer purchases goods; a consumer uses them.

Six Sigma doctrine places (active) customers in opposition to two other classes of people: not-customers and non-customers:

• Customers of a given business have actively dealt with that business within a particular recent period that depends on the product sold.
• Not-customers are either past customers who are no longer customers or potential customers who choose to interact with the competition.
• Non-customers are people who are active in a different market segment entirely.

Six Sigma (6σ) is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement.

Client vs Customer: What Is the Difference? (helpcrunch.com)

→patron, sponsor

六级/考研单词: commerce, vendor, perpetual, endure, desire, contemporary, derive, incline, motive, greed, thereby, singular, regulate, habitat, sustain, entrepreneur, consume, doctrine, interact, segment, patron, sponsor