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To avoid confusion regarding roles and terminology the terms 'Customer' and 'User' are used throughout the new books to differentiate between those people (generally senior managers) who commission, pay for and own the IT Services (the Customers) and those people who use the services on a day-to-day basis (the Users). The semantics are less important than the reason for differentiation. The primary point of contact for Customers is the Customer Relationship Manager, whilst the primary point of contact for Users is the Service Desk. A poorly functioning Incident Management process will affect the User population immediately. A service that is poor value for money will have a greater impact on the Customer.
It is therefore important that we distinguish the different, but related, needs of Users and Customers in the provision of services. Certainly, their goals may be at odds and need to be balanced; for example Users may demand high availability whereas Customers look for value for money at different levels of availability. There are information flows that should be maintained and key process elements that should be defined for use by both parties.
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