choose your words: Do you serve Customers or Users?
Who are the people that ultimately decide on the success of any company?
How do you call those that are ready to commit capital for what you offer?
If you are in retail, do you see those that come into your store as people bringing money and leaving with something?
If you are a fashion house, do you think of the tangible products more than intangible value they provide?
Do you still feel it is us vs them?
Then you probably call these people customers.
Let’s take a different stance. Let us talk about users. Welcome to the second part of “choose your words”.
The term “users” is commonly employed in the tech sector. But since 4 out of the 5 most valuable companies worldwide (market capitalization) are precisely tech companies, it might be worthwhile to apply it – and everything that swings with it – in other industries.
In the context of a luxury fashion maison I heard of “users” only once. Cedric Charbit, CEO of Balenciaga used it at Business of Fashion’s Voices 20211 summit. In the same interview he referred to Balenciaga as a platform instead of a brand. I felt really intrigued by that fresh point of view, and I have further explored it ever since.
As the series “choose your words” is about deep-diving small changes in language, I believe that the terms “user” as well as “customer” hold stronger associations attached to them than their letter count. So, to decide which word to choose, let’s compare the words “customer” and “user”.
Breaking the physical boundary
Fashion is a combination of two key dimensions. The first is clothing, the tangible adornment of the body. Clothing covers to protect, e.g., from the cold or rain, to avoid the (culturally learned) shame of being naked, or nowadays it can even provide performance enhancing properties, e.g., specialized swimwear reducing resistance or cooling layers for long-distance-running.
The second dimension, which is the necessary condition to move clothing towards fashion, is meaning. Meaning is carried by symbols, which are part of any piece of clothing. The meaning of a fashion item is always dependent on an interpretation game between the senders and receivers and what meaning they infer from the worn symbols based on their personal reality. The dimension of meaning relates fashion to consumer psychology. Wearers use fashion pieces to construct their self-image. Together with other symbols, brands project who the wearers are, or who they want to be, to associate themselves with or disassociate from specific social groups2. People who care about fashion are therefore much more users of the intangible service fashion and fashion brands provide than being bound to the limits of the physical product properties.
The term “customer” is defined by acquiring something. Its focus is therefore more linked to the physical dimension – clothing. The term “user” directly refers to making use of something, such as the intangible service that clothing with meaning aka fashion provides. The usage can of course also be linked to the physical properties which are innate in clothing, but the importance here is that the term “user” is just much more comprehensive in its scope in regard to fashion than the term customer.
Forming long-term relationships
In terms of the relationship between the providing and receiving party of a good, the term “customer” implies a transactional nature. It is about the exchange of money against something. This transactional nature also shows the carelessness about what happens to the person and its interaction with the physical product after the sale. The price is paid, so the success is achieved. Thereby, “customer” implies that the relationship begins and ends on each transaction. Of course, there are “recurring customers”, “long-term customers” or “loyal customers”, but for each of them we need to add another word that makes us believe that this is not about a one-off engagement.
However, fashion and luxury items as well as brands are worn daily and very few people only wear something once. The usage also does not end on the sale. It much rather begins here. The interaction between brands and users forms the meaning of a brand’s symbols in conjunction after their purchase. The meaning of symbols is fluid, so brands need to be in a constant observation of how users employ them, otherwise they become out of touch. At the same time, brands can evolve the meaning of their symbolism themselves through systematic marketing activities.
The term “customer” implies a one-time transaction, while the term “user” implies a collaborative push & pull over the meaning of the symbols that make clothing fashion.
Addressing arrogance
Finally let’s review the implication the word use has on the self-understanding of a fashion maison and on how they should reflect on their role.
Inferring from the usual context of the word “user”, fashion companies should maybe consider themselves to be “platforms” – just like Charbit did with Balenciaga at Voices 2021. Why does that matter? Following what we established above, fashion maisons provide the service of constructing the self. It becomes a platform that opens a space in which a community can take shape organically. Conversely, they need to reconsider what they project when emphasizing their brand. “Brand” implies dictatorship; an emblem pinned onto objects. How often has someone felt unwell in a luxury store because the brand imposed negative feelings onto them. Brands create a feeling of exclusion to propel sales. Exclusion however is not matching the Zeitgeist of the next generation of fashion users, which are immensely concerned with inclusion and community. The platform idea holds empathetic implications, it provides an inclusive environment aiming at creating a shared community among its users. To participate in it, users (community members) are happily willing to pay for access.
While this reflection on the implication of the words “customer” and “user” might feel radical to some, I do believe that questioning the very self-understanding leads to deep reflection. The resulting conclusions improve service quality, narrative, engagement, and execution of promotion at large.
So, if that’s too radical: call yourself a brand, but think and feel as if you were a platform.
To conclude this short intervention on “customers” vs “users”, my three personal key takeaways are:
- Physical products are limited to function, whereas tangible and intangible services open a space for identity
- Transactions occur once, whereas collaboration is a shared push-and-pull
- Brands are built on arrogance, whereas platforms are built on empathy
Sources and additional resources:
- Cédric Charbit: “Balenciaga from Hype to Timelessness” | BoFVOICES 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuvWlre0w4M
- Schmitt, B. (2012). The consumer psychology of brands. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(1), 7–17.
- For further reflection on this topic, I highly recommend Highsnobiety’s The New Luxury report, which serves as a guide to build credibility in culture, you find it here https://mailchi.mp/highsnobiety/new-luxury-new-rules
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