New Word: customerfacing???

[Dave Wilton]

> This is a new one on me, on the ADS Archive, and, on Google,
> 24 hits only. Candidate for buzzword bingo, perhaps?
> More seriously, has anyone on the list encountered this -
> apparent - new "word" before, and where was this first encounter?

"Customer facing" (usually with a space or hyphen) is extremely common in
business. It is a good one for buzzword bingo. Googling on the phrase
"customer facing" turns up over 100,000 Googlits and some 50,000 in Google
Groups. An employee who is "customer facing" is one may have contact with a
customer, such as sales, tech/customer support, receptionist, cashier, etc.

I first heard it some time in 1998. The first hit in Google Groups is from
Nov. 1997.