Users and customers. What is the difference?
In my life I have repeatedly encountered the fact that many in IT do not see and do not understand the difference between users (users) and customers (customers). I think it will be useful to clarify this point in a small article, although for many the topic that I will try to solve will be obvious. So let's get started. Ready?
Users use your product. Customers pay for it .
In practice, this simple truth often leads to the fact that users and customers are completely different and sometimes disjoint categories for a particular product. Let's take it through a simple and understandable example. I think the vast majority of Habr's readers regularly use Google search and, accordingly, are its users. At the same time, a very small part of those who read this article are Google clients. How so? We are all accustomed to the fact that if we use some kind of service, then we consider ourselves its clients. And all because Google search clients are those who place and pay for contextual advertising in it. Or, in other words, people or companies that use AdWords for contextual advertising.
As you know, whoever pays is the one who orders music, and this has very definite consequences for product and service developers.
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Users use your product. They register, press buttons, download files. They love the product with all their hearts or with all their soul they hate it. The main thing for the user is the functionality of the product, ease of use, simplicity, quality satisfaction of needs.
A product usually has several categories of users that may require different functions and you will either have to find compromises between their requirements or have dissatisfied users.
Customers (or customers) buy your product. They learn about it, conduct its approbation, decide on its acquisition and, ultimately, pay it.
If your product does not have a customer, then you do not have a business .
Your users can be your customers. For example, users of many Freemium services (Evernote or DropBox) are also their clients. On the other hand, especially in the enterprise segment, decisions about purchasing products are made by people who will never use them.
For business it is extremely important to understand who your customers are. Clients, unlike users, are interested in such factors as price, reputation of the company-seller, its financial stability.
An important practical consequence of the above is that working with users and customers, understanding their needs requires completely different skills and it is desirable that people with relevant experience and knowledge should be involved in this activity.
On this, I actually would like to round out and invite readers to share their thoughts and experiences on this topic in the comments. Thanks for attention!
Users use your product. Customers pay for it .
In practice, this simple truth often leads to the fact that users and customers are completely different and sometimes disjoint categories for a particular product. Let's take it through a simple and understandable example. I think the vast majority of Habr's readers regularly use Google search and, accordingly, are its users. At the same time, a very small part of those who read this article are Google clients. How so? We are all accustomed to the fact that if we use some kind of service, then we consider ourselves its clients. And all because Google search clients are those who place and pay for contextual advertising in it. Or, in other words, people or companies that use AdWords for contextual advertising.
As you know, whoever pays is the one who orders music, and this has very definite consequences for product and service developers.
')
Users
Users use your product. They register, press buttons, download files. They love the product with all their hearts or with all their soul they hate it. The main thing for the user is the functionality of the product, ease of use, simplicity, quality satisfaction of needs.
A product usually has several categories of users that may require different functions and you will either have to find compromises between their requirements or have dissatisfied users.
Customers
Customers (or customers) buy your product. They learn about it, conduct its approbation, decide on its acquisition and, ultimately, pay it.
If your product does not have a customer, then you do not have a business .
Your users can be your customers. For example, users of many Freemium services (Evernote or DropBox) are also their clients. On the other hand, especially in the enterprise segment, decisions about purchasing products are made by people who will never use them.
For business it is extremely important to understand who your customers are. Clients, unlike users, are interested in such factors as price, reputation of the company-seller, its financial stability.
An important practical consequence of the above is that working with users and customers, understanding their needs requires completely different skills and it is desirable that people with relevant experience and knowledge should be involved in this activity.
On this, I actually would like to round out and invite readers to share their thoughts and experiences on this topic in the comments. Thanks for attention!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/150393/
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