James offers what I must agree is a very useful definition of customer:
>In my training I use the following definition to determine who the
>customer is: the customer is the person or body that can make the decision
>to take their business elsewhere, all others are co-suppliers.
This needs to be distinguished between the concept of customer as the
person who represents the next step of a process. I leave it to others to
work out the semantics.
The ability to take one's business elsewhere exists in the private sector
and, to a certain extent, higher education. But in the public sector and
primary and secondary education it doesn't work like that. The lack of a
free market in government and education makes it all the more important
for bureaucrats, legislators and educators to treat their beneficiaries as
though they *could* take their business elsewhere.
The concept of co-suppliers appears to be gaining popularity and is
probably seen most often in reference to "partner" relationships, e.g.,
between a state agency and elements of its regulated community. But this
phenomenon has only recently been weaned; it must still be hand-fed.
This goes deeper, of course, into the realm of long-term customer-supplier
relationships, but that's a whole 'nother subject.
-- David E. Birren Phone: (608)267-2442 Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources Fax: (608)267-3579 Bureau of Management & Budget Internet: birred@dnr.state.wi.us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "To know, and not to act, is to not know." --Wang Yang Ming, 9th-century Chinese general