Serving "the public" versus serving "the customer"

"Squander Two," while railway blogging, nails the distinction (but do read the whole post):

The very phrase "customer service" has it built in: serve your customer so that they will give you money. And there's rarely any doubt about who your customer is: it's the guy offering you money. But then there's public service. The trouble with public service is that the public are a bit of an anonymous blob. While the customer standing in front of you, wanting to give you money, might be a member of the public, he ain't "the public." If you work in public service, your job is not to serve him.

I think I'd extend this to include private companies in pseudo-monopoly positions.  If your patrons have little choice, there's little incentive to please them.

Via Tim Worstall

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 23:54:20 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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