Who is help desk supporting: customers, end-users, consumers?

Dear Bob …

Not exactly an earth-shattering question, but this has something that’s been on my mind for a little while.

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After having worked in desktop support and systems administration for about 12 years now, I find that I have acquired the meme of referring to the people that I support as “customers,” which is a term (in this context, that is) that I have always found contemptible. The problem is, I’ve been so thoroughly indoctrinated that I’m no longer certain what I should be calling them anymore, particularly since I’m a contractor, which means they actually are the customer.

I used to call them “users,” but the term seems dated now. Time was when computer users and usage were the exception, not the rule, so “user” made sense. These days, though, pretty much everyone is a “user.” I haven’t looked into it much, but I’d hazard a guess that even basic manual laborers use the Internet quite a bit. I can certainly think of quite a few reasons that they would.

The only other alternative I’ve ever seen in ticketing systems is to refer to people submitting service requests as “resources,” as in “Resource requests installation of VPN client on laptop.” I find this term appalling. To me, a “resource” is a pen, a Wikipedia article, or a box of thumbtacks, not a human being.

I suppose you might say that calling them “customers” makes sense in a case like mine, which I don’t think I’d be concerned to argue with. For those who work a help desk under more usual circumstances, though, what term do you think would be appropriate? “Clients,” maybe? That’s the term that lawyers and doctors typically use, but somehow that feels kind of odd as well.

– Needs a word

Dear Needs …

As you probably recall, I’ve written more than one tirade against the whole concept of internal customers, including an entire chapter of the Keep the Joint Running manifesto. You make a good point about your situation and your client being a real customer, though, so I’ll take this in a somewhat different direction, which is that the word you should use depends on the context of the conversation.

Start with the definition of “customer.” That’s the person or people who make or strongly influence the buying decision for whatever products and services you sell. If you work through a staff augmentation firm as a contractor, that company is your customer. Its customers are whichever individual or group of individuals within the client firm decided to use it instead of its competitors. They are also your customers by proxy.

The whole company you’re serving isn’t the customer; it’s the wallet — the provider of money.

From the perspective of working with each individual to assist them in solving their problems, I personally continue to call them end-users or business users. Technically, they should be called “consumers” as they’re the ones who consume the services you provide. They play a very limited customer role; if you and your colleagues do a bad job, their complaints could result in a decision to make a change. They’re your customers when you’re referring to them in that context — but only in that context. Other than that, end-user is as good a term as I’ve run across.

This is, by the way, a theoretical analysis. If you try to put it into practice from where you sit, you’ll likely put yourself on the receiving end of puzzled looks unless you’re in the sort of bull session that gives you the conversational room you’d need to explain things.

Otherwise, I’d say you should adopt whatever vocabulary your customer — the services company through which you’re working — prefers.

Or if you are selling your services directly, call everyone your customer as a courtesy, making the tacit assumption that the contracting officer does care about the quality of service you’re providing to the end-user community.

– Bob

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