Learn what industry experts (like Shep Hyken, Tony Hsieh, and Jeff Bezos) and household names (like Bill Gates, Henry Ford, and Gandhi) have said about interacting with customers. This extensive list of customer service quotes will motivate you and your team to help customers succeed.
To skip to quotes on a certain topic, click on one of the six categories below:
Exceeding Expectations
Being Human
Loyalty
Customer Focus
Business
Culture
Exceeding Expectations
The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways. – Richard Branson
Here is a powerful yet simple rule. Always give people more than they expect to get. – Nelson Boswell
Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new…If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. – Seth Godin
We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better. – Jeff Bezos
Make the customer the hero of your story. – Ann Handley
Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They DO expect you to fix things when they go wrong. – Donald Porter
Always do more than is required of you. – George Patton
Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them. – Kevin Stirtz
The longer you wait, the harder it is to produce outstanding customer service. – William H. Davidow
The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. – Sam Walton
People expect good service but few are willing to give it. – Robert Gately
Being Human
It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back. – Seth Godin
A customer service apology is stronger with a personal touch. – Shep Hyken
When people call our call center, our reps don’t have scripts, and they don’t try to up-sell. They are just judged on whether they go above and beyond for the customer and really deliver a kind of personal service and emotional connection with our customers. – Tony Hsieh
Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship, but remember that at the end of the day it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most. – Tony Hsieh
A lot of people have fancy things to say about customer service, but it’s just a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, persevering, compassionate kind of activity. – Christopher McCormick
The only purpose of ‘customer service’… is to change feelings. – Seth Godin
Always keep in mind the old retail adage: Customers remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price. – Lauren Freedman
In an era when companies see online support as a way to shield themselves from costly interactions with their customers, it’s time to consider an entirely different approach: building human-centric customer service through great people and clever technology. So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. It’s worth it. – Kristin Smaby
Make a customer, not a sale. – Katherine Barchetti
Customers may forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. – Unknown
There is a spiritual aspect to our lives – when we give, we receive – when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them! – Ben Cohen
To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity. – Don Alden Adams
Our attitude towards others determines their attitude towards us. – Earl Nightingale
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen. – Ernest Hemingway
Don’t find fault. Find a remedy. – Henry Ford
Go beyond merely communicating to ‘connecting’ with people. – Jerry Bruckner
One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention. – Jim Rohn
People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said. – Peter Drucker
Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Always remember that everyone with whom you have a relationship has an invisible sign on their forehead that says ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Treat them accordingly. – Eric Philip Cowell
Seek first to understand. Then to be understood. – Stephen Covey
Every great business is built on friendship. – James Cash Penney
Loyalty
The way to a customer’s heart is much more than a loyalty program. Making customer evangelists is about creating experiences worth talking about. – Valeria Maltoni
Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them. – W. Edwards Deming
The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers. – Shiv Singh
We take most of the money that we could have spent on paid advertising and instead put it back into the customer experience. Then we let the customers be our marketing. – Tony Hsieh
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. – Mother Teresa
Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you. – Chip Bell
Historically, our number-one growth driver has been from repeat customers and word of mouth. – Tony Hsieh
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. – Will Rogers
The best advertising you can have is a loyal customer spreading the word about how incredible your business is. – Shep Hyken
Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned. – Janet Robinson
To keep a customer demands as much skill as to win one. – American Proverb
When the customer comes first, the customer will last. – Robert Half
Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless. – Jeffrey Gitomer
Customer Focus
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so. – Mahatma Gandhi
Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves. – Steve Jobs
If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering. – Jeff Bezos
The customer’s perception is your reality. – Kate Zabriskie
Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers. – Seth Godin
We have entered the era of the customer. Today, providing customers with outstanding customer service is essential to building loyal customers and a long lasting brand. – Jerry Gregoire
We’re not competitor-obsessed, we’re customer-obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards. – Jeff Bezos
If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours. – Ray Kroc
Revolve your world around the customer and more customers will revolve around you. – Heather Williams
Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company. – Michael LeBoeuf
Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient. – Jeff Bezos
Business
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – Bill Gates
In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away. – Doug Warner
In general, organizations are afraid to fire customers, no matter how unreasonable. This is a mistake. It’s good for you. – Seth Godin
Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others. – Seth Godin
If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000. – Jeff Bezos
Customer service is the new marketing. – Derek Sivers
Any customer that walks away, disrespected and defeated, represents tens of thousands of dollars out the door, in addition to the failure of a promise the brand made in the first place. You can’t see it but it’s happening, daily. – Seth Godin
There are many who subscribe to the convention that service is a business cost, but our data demonstrates that superior service is an investment that can help drive business growth. Investing in quality talent, and ensuring they have the skills, training and tools that enable them to empathize and actively listen to customers are central to providing consistently excellent service experiences. – Jim Bush
We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission. – Jeff Bezos
No amount of advertising can repair the damage done by failing to properly address a customer’s concern. – Albert Schindler
The handful of companies that respond promptly and accurately to customer emails increase trust in their brand, bolster customer satisfaction, and boost sales both online and offline. – BenchmarkPortal
Getting service right is more than just a nice to do; it’s a must do. American consumers are willing to spend more with companies that provide outstanding service — ultimately, great service can drive sales and customer loyalty. – Jim Bush
The rise of the citizen review site is a sobering development. No longer are you on top of the mountain, blasting your marketing message down to the masses through your megaphone. All of a sudden, the masses are conversing with one another. If your service or product isn’t any good, they’ll out you. – David Pogue
What gets measured, gets done. And what gets recognized gets done again, and even better. – Robert Crawford
If you a make a sale, you make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune. – John Rohn
The reputation of a thousand years may be undermined by the conduct of one hour. – Japanese Proverb
Good customer service costs less than bad customer service. – Sally Gronow
Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing. – Samuel Smiles
Customers often know more about your products than you do. Use them as a source of inspiration and ideas for product development. – David J. Greer
Culture
Customer service isn’t a department, it’s a philosophy! – Shep Hyken
The problem when someone feels burned out, bored, unchallenged, or stifled by their work is not the job itself but rather the environment and playground rules given to them to do the job at hand. – Tony Hsieh
Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions. – Betsy Sanders
Whether you are big or small, you cannot give good customer service if your employees don’t feel good about coming to work. – Martin Oliver
Every employee can affect your company’s brand, not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers. – Tony Hsieh
Nordstrom’s Rules for Employees: Rule # 1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There are no additional rules. – Nordstrom Employee Rules
If we consistently exceed the expectations of employees, they will consistently exceed the expectations of our customers. – Shep Hyken
You’re serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work. – Laurie McIntosh
Employees who are controlled cannot respond caringly, you need superior knowledge and real leadership, not management. Because of this we specifically developed a selection process for leaders; we don’t hire managers. – Horst Schulze
Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees. – Tony Hsieh
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. – Benjamin Franklin
For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny. – Tony Hsieh
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Focus on winning one customer at a time. Be honest and sincere. Do what’s right. There’s nothing magical about this. That’s been my guiding principle. To make it work, you have to live it every day. Make it your mindset. – Robert Spector
I think when people say they dread going into work on Monday morning, it’s because they know they are leaving a piece of themselves at home. Why not see what happens when you challenge your employees to bring all of their talents to their job and reward them not for doing it just like everyone else, but for pushing the envelope, being adventurous, creative, and open-minded, and trying new things? – Tony Hsieh
People always ask me, how do you teach core values? The answer is, you don’t. The goal is not to get people to share your core values. It’s to get people who already share your core values. – Robert Spector
Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’ – Brian Tracy
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