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Meaning & use

external customer

noun·Academicbusiness

Last updated

UK/ɪkˌstɜːnl ˈkʌstəmə/
US/ɪkˌstɝːnl ˈkʌstəmɚ/

Meaning

  1. nouncountable

    A person or organization outside a company that buys its goods or services, as opposed to a colleague or department inside it.

    Grammar: Countable: an external customer, many external customers.

    Patterns

    • an external customer of something
    • serve an external customer

    The sales team deals with every external customer, from small shops to large retailers.

    An external customer pays for the finished product, while the packaging team is an internal customer of the factory.

    We measure satisfaction among external customers once a quarter.

Word forms

pluralexternal customers

Common combinations

serve external customers
The call center exists to serve external customers.
satisfy an external customer
We must satisfy the external customer before anything else.
external customer feedback
External customer feedback shaped the new design.
external and internal customers
Good managers think about external and internal customers equally.
external customer service
External customer service is handled by a separate team.

Synonyms and how they differ

client
Client often suggests a professional relationship, such as with a lawyer, while external customer simply contrasts with people inside the company.
end user
End user is the person who ends up using a product, who may not be the one who paid for it.
consumer
Consumer describes anyone who buys or uses goods, whereas external customer is specifically defined against internal customers.
patron
Patron is a more traditional word for a regular customer of a shop or restaurant, and is less common in management language.

Opposites

internal customer

Word family

customer noun
a person who buys goods or services
external adjective
outside something
internal customer noun
a colleague or department that depends on your work
customer service noun
help given to buyers

Commonly confused: external customer or internal customer?

external customer vs internal customer

An internal customer is a colleague or department within your own organization who receives your work. An external customer pays from outside.

Practice

In quality management, the accounting department is an internal customer of the IT team, while the company that buys the product is an ______.

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