RELATIONSHIP VOCABULARY STEERING GROUP
Client Relationship Nomenclature
Clients or customers?
The case for intervention
Clients implied advice. Customers implied transactions. The same organizations continued to pay the same invoices under either description.
The work undertaken
The group mapped 48 relationship types across a two-by-two matrix whose axes were transactional intimacy and advisory proximity. Sales requested a fifth quadrant for accounts that had not yet paid.
The approved outcome
Customer remained the master-data field. Client became an approved display label. Reports now reconcile the two before discussing revenue.
What stayed with people
“CLIENT-FACING. CUSTOMER-ADJACENT.”
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