The “know your customer” is an often repeated slogan that is repeated in almost all marketing books. Yes, it is very important to know your customer but do you know who the customer sells to ? If the customer is selling to another business, it behooves you to know that other business too. After all, the reason the customer is buying your product or service is because he would like to use it (directly or indirectly) to sell their own product.
It is also useful to understand people. The product or service that you sell is finally being used by a person and is not being used by a company. So rather than work with a company, work with people. They are the final users, if you understand the user then you will understand the need.
There have been various terms used to describe the “customer”. Out of respect and need, some restaurants or hotels might say they are our “guests” rather than calling them customers. It does imply that calling them guests, makes them respect the customer much more…if that is true then every company should call their customer guests. A distant way of calling them is “client “but that is implied to mean that a client is buying advice or services that is customized for them or maybe it is something to do with repeat performance. This all may be semantics but it does matter when you see terms like “Target your customer”. This implies that the customer is just a little bulls eye that you aim for so that you can sell them something. Maybe calling them a “guest” is probably more than just semantics and does show respect.