Types of Clients
Clients are commonly understood as persons (or companies), who continuously or occasionally, acquire a service or acquire a good, in a commercial establishment, company, or other type of commercial entity (bank or financial services company), etc., that is, a customer is understood as consumers or users who buy products and services, either occasionally or regularly.
Originally client referred to a benefactor (in ancient Rome), being understood as a kind of custody that some citizens offered to people who did not have Roman citizenship and relied on the protection provided by their benefactors. Although the concept has been transformed over time, leading to mean other things in reference to other topics such as politics, computer science and even psychology. The most common area is the economic one and it is the one we will focus on.
Types of clients
Customers can be classified into two main types, namely:
- Potential customers
- Current customers
- Potential customers.- Potential customers are all those people, companies and organizations that, although they do not currently purchase a product or service, do have the possibility that in the future they will require the product or service provided by a company. company or business, that is, that market that it is possible to reach in the short, medium or long-term future, are called potential customers.
- Current customers.- Refers to people, companies or organizations that make purchases periodically, or have done so recently, as well as people who occasionally buy or acquire a service, being the ones to whom the sales of goods and services are made. of a company, that is, these people and companies (customers), are the current market of the company and those who generate the (current) income of the same.
Within these two main groups, other more specific classifications can be made, potential customers are divided according to the volume of the purchase of goods or services that they could make, according to the possibility of frequency of purchase and according to the degree of influence they could exert on others. customers.
Clients according to their degree of potential influence.- They are clients that can be highly influential, at different levels, for example a politician or artist who acquires a certain product or service from our company, can influence future acquisitions by a broad sector of the public (potential customers), another case would be that of a father of a family or a housewife, who acquires a product and influences other members of the family for its future acquisition, these types of clients are important for companies, since they represent in themselves, a propaganda tool, as well as an influence that could attract more customers.
According to the possible frequency of purchase.- This type of potential customer is identified through commercial strategies and market research, which result in the possible frequency of a certain potential market (customers), in case they become current customers. Divided into potential, occasional, regular and frequent customers, according to the results of the market research.
According to their possible purchase volume.- They are potential customers who, through market research, have been able to determine the possible volume of purchases that they could make of a certain product, which can be divided into high, medium and low volume, according to result of the investigation of the purchasing capacities, and of economic solvency that said potential client may have. In the case of “current” customers, the volume and frequency of what they usually purchase is measured, with which they are classified as high, medium, or low volume, depending on their amount of consumption.
Current customers can be divided into different more specific types, depending on how often they order services or buy products, or the amount or volume of what they buy, as well as whether they are active or inactive customers, etc.
Frequent customers.- They are those who periodically make purchases, and who are generally pleased with the quality of the product or service provided by a company or business and although they can buy in another establishment, they usually prefer ours.
Usual customers. They are similar to the previous ones but they are usually more “loyal” to an establishment, business, brand or company, both out of habit, and because of the good service or the good quality of what has been purchased. They are usually the base of certain companies, since it is a practically safe market, therefore there is a special emphasis on ensuring the conservation of this type of client, through some promotions and “rights” that are acquired by being clients. , especially if they have been for years.
Occasional customers.- These are those customers who make purchases or acquire services on an occasional basis, that is, they are not frequent, but they usually require the service again or buy the product that we distribute.
Sporadic clients.- They are those who acquire a product or service on one occasion, without this implying that they will acquire it again or not (in the same company), that is, they are clients who may well not meet their needs with our company, but they can do so indifferently with any other company that provides them with the service or sells similar merchandise, being only sporadically that they acquire in a particular company or establishment.
Frequent customers with high consumption.- Customers who have a high consumption or volume of purchases within an establishment, company, or a particular brand, are usually customers who in turn resell some type of product (such as some retail stores), but there are also particular ones, as for example in cases in which these people, once a fortnight, supply the household goods and the fortnight’s groceries in the same establishment, that is, they have a relatively high and frequent consumption of either a particular brand, or in a defined establishment.
Low-consumption customers.- They are usually those customers who are always looking for savings, so they buy items that are not necessary only occasionally, or in their case in relatively small quantities.
Another way to classify the types of customers is by the degree of satisfaction they have with a product or service they have purchased.
Dissatisfied customers.- They are those who are not satisfied with a certain service or product, showing dissatisfaction with it.
Pleased or satisfied customers.- They are those who are fully pleased with the product purchased or with the service received, that is, they are happy with the service received or with the product purchased, which can be reflected in a subsequent purchase or acquisition of future services by that customer.
