Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

Becky Carroll of Customers Rock! has tackled the question of whether we should label people who buy from us "customer" or "client" and she asked us customer service bloggers to share our opinions on this issue.

You may recall a post awhile back titled Clients, Customers and Consumers: What's the Difference? where I said that it doesn't really matter what you call them as long as you made people feel valuable. 

As I was reading Becky's post, I learned that many people feel that there are negative associations with the word "customer".  In an email, Glenn Ross of Customer Service Experience said:

"I might suggest that the word "client" could be considered more classy or professional than 'customer.'  To me, when a business calls people who use its services "clients" it implies a closer relationship than other businesses have with their 'customers.' But that could just be a perception."

I would agree with Glenn, but then again, it still doesn't really matter to me.  Call me whatever you want as long as you treat me good!  Bill Gammell of Ubereye Marketing Blog left a comment on my previous post saying, "Whatever you use, don't let it become a trite phrase. Its attitude over platitude."

Any thoughts?