The Perfect Order: Defining the customer

Before we jump into the 8Rs of the Customer’s Bill of Rights, I really think that we need to start more at the beginning and ask ourselves a fundamental question: Who is the customer?

Dr. Marien was not explicit here, but in reviewing his article one can extract the different meanings of how the “customer” could be defined. But let’s not gloss over this, because it’s important.

Realistically, there can be two identities of who the customer is:

1. The customer is a business.
2. The customer is a person.

Businesses include: retailer, grocery, manufacturing, distribution, government, non-profit, healthcare, education, hospitality, defense, entertainment, and other such revenue-generating or service organizations. I know I’m mixing different classifications or types of businesses here, but in one way or another, they all relate to being some kind of business.

A person is a person, an individual.

With the two identities of the customer defined, we can talk about the different commerce models that represent how goods are sold.

1. B2B: Business-to-business
2. B2C: Business-to-consumer
3. D2C: Direct-to-consumer

In a B2B relationship, one business sells to another business. This would be indicative of a raw materials supplier selling to a manufacturer, or a consumer goods company fulfilling to a retailer’s or a grocer’s distribution center or store. Here, the customer to the seller is a business, which is the buyer of the seller’s goods or services.

In a B2C relationship, one business ships to another business’s customer (the consumer), who is a person. This is common in retail where vendors are instructed to drop-ship goods to the retailer’s customers (the consumers). Drop‑shipping can now be interpreted as shipping to the consumer’s home, office, or BOPIS (buy online pickup in store). The buying business (the retailer) is the customer of the selling business, the retail vendor.

In a D2C relationship, the business sells directly to the consumer (a person) with no intermediary entity. The business is both the retailer and the seller and owns the customer (consumer) relationship. This is true whether the business sells via its own brick-and-mortar store or online using its website.

Sellers who use online marketplace platforms do not own the consumers; the marketplace platforms do. This would be akin to a B2C relationship

Selling companies—especially those in the retail industry—may be engaged in more than one commerce model, e.g., B2B and B2C, and thus may have to configure their software (ERP, EDI) and business operations for customers that are both businesses and persons (regardless of the ultimate ownership).

Whether conducting commerce electronically or face to face, and regardless of whether the customer is a business or a person, customers expect orders to be perfect. We’ve all been customers; we all continue to be customers. And while mistakes happen, and we can forgive on occasion, our demands have increased as our expectations of execution have been amplified. From pizza delivery in 30 minutes to two-day and then one-day delivery of online orders, the world around us has collapsed our patience and narrowed our view of what is “perfectly” acceptable.

Whether the customer is a business or the customer is a person, the customer has a right to a perfectly delivered order, whether from a restaurant kitchen or from a warehouse/distribution center. It is therefore the responsibility of the seller to ensure that this right is upheld. Now, granted, customers are not always “right.” But if the customer has clearly communicated all the correct information and direction regarding the goods desired, and if the customer has not placed any impediments to success in the way, then there is really no customer-based reason for not delivering the goods the customer requested, and likely received a confirmation of, that they would get, when, where, and certainly in what condition (the implication being first-quality).

With the definition of the customer clear now, we can move on to the first of Dr. Marien’s customer rights. Up next: The Right Product.

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