Difficult customers

By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Magazine

First it was rail passengers, then jobseekers, then taxpayers - all have been rebranded as customers. Now wheel clampers are being told to address their irate victims as customers too. Why?

Stroppy, anxious, persecuted - the motorist who returns to his parked car only to find it immobilised by an unyielding wheel clamp is unlikely to feel empowered by the experience.

But while he may describe himself as a "victim" of Britain's increasingly austere parking culture, the clamper who fitted the disabling device must treat him as a "customer".

That's how clampers - or "vehicle immobilisers" - attending a compulsory training school are being told to address irate motorists. Official course materials for the BTEC level II talk about "developing good customer care" and "managing customer expectations ... towards a realistic understanding of the situation".

At the same time, the newly revamped Inland Revenue is gearing up to put "customers", formerly simply "taxpayers", at the centre of what it does. A draft mission statement, issued for consultation earlier this year, referred to "understanding our customers".

Unaccustomed as I am...

Customer creep - the furtive spread of the word "customer" - has been with us since the early 1990s when British Rail, then being groomed for privatisation, renamed its passengers as customers.

The decision irked many old-school commuters who subscribed to the definition of a customer as someone who has a choice.

Since then council-tax payers, subscribers, citizens, private health patients and jobseekers have all been quietly reclassified as customers. The BBC is no exception, variously describing licence fee payers as viewers, audiences and customers.

And now illegally parked motorists can also enjoy the honour of being treated as if they had willingly walked into a cordial, two-way agreement. A spokeswoman for Edexcel, which helped draft the course materials, says the term is to distinguish them from the clampers.

"I don't think it's at all inappropriate," she says, although she concedes that "people who have been clamped might not be happy with being called it."

WHAT IS CUSTOMER? A person who buys goods or services from a shop or business a person one has to deal with (an awkward customer) Source: Concise OED

But what's driving this unassailable adoption of the word "customer"? Is it just another example of style over substance; an effort in this world of myriad choices to dress up the zero option as something else? Or could the companies and organisations implicated have some deeper motive?

John Ayto, author of several books about our use of words, says the trend "goes against the basic idea that it is the customer who initiates the transaction".

"I'm not entirely sure what the motivation is," he says of the wheel clamping example. "Perhaps they think the victim will be soothed or pleased in some way".

That is partly the intention according to Lloyd Evans, a journalist who attended that wheel clamping course for the London Evening Standard.

"They were very keen that we should greet the customer and were even told it was a good idea that we should shake their hand; to be polite and smile," he says.

Only marginally less emotive than wheel clamping is tax, and here too the public is increasingly being elevated to the role of "customer", regardless of the fact - as the old saying goes - there are only two inevitabilities in life: death and taxes. No mention of choice there.

Water customers in the UK have no choice about their provider

The Inland Revenue says it has used the C-word for some years, but that looks like getting the official stamp with rumours that the soon-to-be revamped organisation will add "customers" to its new mission statement. The taxman says it wants to "treat those people who use our service as though they had a real choice of service provider".

Town halls are also on board, often calling council taxpayers customers. But now it's got out of hand, says Prof John Stewart, author of Modernising British Local Government. He believes the blanket use of the word disguises what are more complex relationships between councils and the public.

"There are many situations where it's not appropriate. Customers buy something, but councils have to impose things," he says. "The word 'customer' hardly captures the authority's relationship with someone who has objected to a planning application, and is overruled."

But it's not all bad, says Prof Stewart, who thinks the emphasis on the customer, developed in the 1980s and early 90s, played an important part in encouraging town halls to embrace some of the more effective elements of private business.

If anyone believes in customers' rights, it is Ted Johns, chairman of the Institute of Customer Service. But is this growing appropriation of the word not cheapening it?

There may be some deviousness in calling us customers, but it's for the greater good Ted Johns, Institute of Customer Service

"It risks devaluing it," he says. "It's an illusion in lots of situations. When I travel from Basingstoke to London by South West Trains, I'm a customer, but I don't have a choice of different train operator."

The word customer implies both sides have an "active part" in a transaction, Mr Johns says. But sometimes there's no better alternative. "Client" and "donor" are patronising, "akin to charity or the parent-child relationship", he says. So is "user", which implies a recipient.

"Customer is one of the by-products of the age of Thatcher, when individuals suddenly came to wield power."

The irony, says Mr Johns, is that organisations have adopted the word more for the benefit of their staff. The theory is to seed among staff that they should treat the public as customers, even though they're not.

"It's an internal communications matter that has spilled over. They have to use a unified language, but the word is aimed more at the employee. So there may be some deviousness in calling us customers, but it's for the greater good."

A word of caution though from Pete Tynan, of consumer watchdog Which?, who says treating people as customers "can be a step in the right direction".

"However, too often calling someone a customer is a glib means of avoiding doing anything concrete to alleviate their problems. But provided a company backs up using the word 'customer' with the sentiment that the 'customer is always right' then it's got to be a positive step."

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Add your comments to this story using the form below:

I see myself as an employer of the taxman. After all I help pay his/her wages. If I were a customer, I would have a choice of which taxes I would purchase, and I would be able to 'shop' around for the best deal.
tricia , surrey

I worked for one of the larger banks and anyone outside of the immediate team was no longer a colleague but an internal customer. I'm not sure whether this was due to a management need to create jargon or so the same review methods could be used for admin workers as for real customers.
Kevin Guthrie, Sheffield

I have heard within hospitals 'patients' being referred to as customers. It sounds insulting. Just as much as having to pay for the privilege of parking your car at a hospital as though you had a choice.
martin bud, UK

"The customer is always right" was always a basic premise in the consumer industries "even when they are wrong". To suggest this principle may extend to people that are clamped is ludicrous. How often do we expect to hear "No, sorry sir, you were double parked but as you are always right we shall remove the clamp. Have a nice day".
Dan, UK

I abhor the inappropriate use of the word "customer". I am currently having a dispute with the tax office - one which I would probably not have pursued if they had not had the gall to refer to me as one of their "customers". I have demanded they advise me what service I have purchased from them.
David Beggs, England

I heard that rail users were termed 'customers' because 'passengers' gave the unwarranted expectation that they were going to go somewhere.
Roger Steer, UK

Taken to its logical conclusion, clamped motorists should be able to ask for the clamp to be removed as they are taking their "custom" elsewhere!
John Airey, Peterborough, UK

As a member of my local library I am addressed as a 'customer'. I don't buy things from my library, unless I wish to travel some distance I have no choice but to use my local library. So where is the choice that 'customer' implies? What's wrong with the old fashioned 'reader' which describes a library user perfectly.
Sharon Clark, England

It's a reminder that as well as lefty PC there's Thatcherite PC as well, and it's just as daft.
John, UK

Over here, in a misguided attempt to recognise those who receive our services, we refer to 'customers' regardless whether they have a choice to receive or not. I think it's part of a bigger problem in understanding the role of stakeholders and partners - we tend to rely on the more generic and easily understood 'customer' term instead. It's a particularly difficult question for government offices: is the person paying the parking fine the customer? Or is the general taxpayer the customer?
Susan, Canada

I disagree with the definition of 'Customer' here. I don't think being a customer is necessarily about choice, it's about the receipt of a beneficial service. So I have no problem being called a customer by my water company, because even though I have no choice I do receive a beneficial service from them. I may go as far as to agree that I am a customer of the Inland Revenue - since although paying taxes is to my immediate detriment (ie. not beneficial at all), ultimately I do benefit from the use of tax revenue through hospitals, schools, etc. However I draw the line at clampers.
Jim, UK

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