Why is that we have 2 different tables for Consumer and Customer?

[Community Alums]

We have a case where a user who is sometime a Consumer and sometimes he acts as the customer.

Can i use only the customer forms or is there a need to use the consumer tables too.

If i go ahead and using on the Customer table what is that i will miss on not using Consumer table.

Regards

Gautham

[parag-mone · Accepted solution]

Hi,

"Consumer" should be used to capture B2C relationship whereas "Account" and "Contact" should be used to capture B2B relationship.

Companies typically have two different types of customers - B2B customers and B2C customers. B2B, which stands for business-to-business, is a process for selling products or services to other businesses. B2C, which stands for business-to-consumer, is a process for selling products directly to consumers. For Example, 

Boeing is a B2B customer and has purchased 1000 Macs from Apple, Peter Pan is an employee and is responsible for managing these Macs. In CSM, "Boeing" will be defined as an "Account" and "Peter Pan" will be defined as a "Contact" of Boeing. Peter Pan can report issues on behalf of Boeing to Apple using Apple's B2B support channel. 

Parag M is a B2C customer and has purchased iPhone from Apple. Parag is defined as a "Consumer" in the application and can report issues to Apple using their B2C support channel.

[Vijeta]

Hi Parag,

I have a follow up question on the model you have shared. I know it is a old thread , just in case you have more thoughts on  this.

Which model we shall use, From your example say Apple is not only just selling products to Boeing it also sales customer service - that is any problem enduser of Boing have they can reach out to apple directly for issues. in this case how do you model the end user here since contact are moreover an representative of Boeing. also contacts can see cases for other contacts so i believe contact is out of question in this use case. 

Should one consider B2C model instead and mark Boeing as customer Compony? since we want service end customer. do you see any problem with this approach

Any direction on how to model this would be very helpful, thank you.

[Community Alums]

Thanks Parag,

to add up to my query, from the diagram which you have explained above, if i replace Parag M by Peter Pan, now Peter Pan is a customer contact as well as consumer.

So if Perter pan has to raise a case on customer level he has to log in to customer portal and is he has to log and case his personal iPhone then he has to log in to consumer portal.

Based on the client requirement, can i go ahead and have everyone to point customer portal, provided there is no data security polices applied between agents handling customer and consumer cases.

What is that Peter pan will loose as a consumer if he is moved as a Customer?

Regards

Gautham

[d Mello]

As a B2B he would be having certain entitlements that would not be available to him asa B2C (Upgrades, quick service etc.)

Also, SN is clear and in Good Practice demands that Business contacts B2B are segregated from individual B2C Consumer contacts.