As a marketer, you probably already know customer service is one of the most important parts of the job. In fact, according to Forrester, 90% of customer service decision makers believe that delivering good customer service is critical to their company’s success. And, there’s plenty of stats to explain why customer service is such a big deal:
- A whooping 89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after they experienced poor customer service. (RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report)
- 40% of customers have purchased from a competitor because of their reputation for great customer service. (Zendesk)
- 55% of consumers who intended to make a purchase backed out because of poor customer service. (American Express)
- 73% of consumers have stated that friendly customer service reps can make them fall in love with a brand. (RightNow)
- 95% of customers who have had a bad experience will share it with others. (Zendesk)
In short, outstanding customer service can help your brand increase sales and poor customer can have serious repercussions.
To ensure your brand goes above and beyond for its customers, here are 50 inspiring and motivating quotes that you should print out and hang in your office to remind you just how valuable your customers are for your business.
1. “Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, re-read Rule 1.” – Stew Leonard, founder Stew Leonard’s
2. “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, founder of Amazon
3. “Make the customer the hero of your story.” – Ann Handley, bestselling author and Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
4. “In the end, the customer doesn’t know, or care, if you are small or large as an organization. She or he only focuses on the garment hanging on the rail in the store.” – Giorgio Armani, founder of Armani
5. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates, c0-founder of Microsoft
6. “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, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s
7. “Customer service is an opportunity to exceed your customer’s expectations.” – John Jantsch, President at Duct Tape Marketing
8. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter, V.P. at British Airways
9. “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, author of Fabled Service
10. “Your website isn’t the center of your universe. Your Facebook page isn’t the center of your universe. Your mobile app isn’t the center of your universe. The customer is the center of your universe.” – Bruce Ernst, V.P. of Product Management at Monetate
11. “The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” – John Russell, President at Harley Davidson
12. “Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers” – Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach
13. “Customers don’t always know what they want. The decline in coffee-drinking was due to the fact that most of the coffee people bought was stale and they weren’t enjoying it. Once they tasted ours and experienced what we call “the third place”… a gathering place between home and work where they were treated with respect.. they found we were filling a need they didn’t know they had.” – Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO at Starbucks
14. “In the world of internet customer service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away” – Doug Warner, Internet enthusiast
15. “Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.” – Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and motivational speaker
16. “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” – Walt Disney, co-founder The Walt Disney Company
17. “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, Founder & CEO of Conversation Agent LLC
18. “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.” – Sam Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart
19. “Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you” – Mark Cuban, American businessman
20. “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, CEO of Zappos
21. “The customer’s perception is your reality.” – Kate Zabriskie, Author of Customer Service Excellence: How to Deliver Value to Today’s Busy Customer
22. “Above all, we wish to avoid having a dissatisfied customer. We consider our customers a part of our organization, and we want them to feel free to make any criticism they see fit in regard to our merchandise or service. Sell practical, tested merchandise at reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings — and they will always come back.” – Leon Leonwood Bean, founder of L.L. Bean
23. “You are serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work.” – Laurie McIntosh, co-author of A Mixed Bunch: 21 Cases For Diversity Training
24. “Setting customer expectations at a level that is aligned with consistently deliverable levels of customer service requires that your whole staff, from product development to marketing, works in harmony with your brand image.” – Richard Branson, founder of The Virgin Group
25. “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, founder of Chip Bell Group
26. “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, MD Kwik-Fit Financial Services
27. “Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer” – Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People
28. “Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.” – Stanley Marcus, President of Neiman Marcus
29. “For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base” – John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market
30. “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” – Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple
31. “Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.” – Jeffrey Gitomer, author and customer loyalty expert
32. “The longer you wait, the harder it is to produce outstanding customer service.” – William H. Davidow, marketing executive, author, and venture capitalist
33. “It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
34. “Customer experience is a catalyst of transformation. It directly impacts culture, strategy, structure and all parts of a business.” – Christine Crandell, creator of Sellers’ Compass
35. “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, New York Times technology columnist
36. “To me what mattered most was never to register more sales in the cash register. The only thing that mattered to me was to register a smile on the customer’s face. If you can get a customer to smile, we will succeed.” – Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Bakeries
37. “Here is a simple but powerful rule: always give people more than what they expect to get.” – Nelson Boswell, author of Inner Peace, Inner Power
38. “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, author of Poke the Box
39. “True loyalty doesn’t come because of an app. It doesn’t come because you have a punch card where after ten punches you get a free sandwich. It is about the relationship. Take away those “perks” and would the customer still be loyal?” – Shep Hyken, customer service speaker
40. “Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction, you must improve.” – Horst Schulz, president of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
41. “We’re living in what I like to call the ‘Thank You Economy,’ because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way – and do it authentically – are going to have a prayer of competing.” – Gary Vaynerchuk, co-founder of VaynerMedia
42. “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, president of McDonald’s
43. “You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.” – Jerry Fritz, customer experience speaker and author
44. “One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.” – Jim Rohn, author and motivational speaker
45. “Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face.You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” – Ross Perot, founder of Electronic Data Systems
46. “When you’re trying to make an important decision, and you’re sort of divided on the issue, ask yourself: ‘If the customer were here, what would she say?’” – Dharmesh Shah, founder of HubSpot
47. “With businesses, you go to the same places because you like the service, you like the people and they take care of you. They greet you with a smile. That’s how people want to be treated, with respect. That’s what I tell my employees…customer service is very important” – Ervin “Magic” Johnson
48. “Cater to your customers’ lifestyles. It will create instant rapport and a lasting sense of “I belong here.” – Marilyn Suttle, founder of Suttle Enterprises LLC
49. “Every great business is built on friendship.” – JC Penney
50. “It is, of course, not possible to state with any practical exactitude what the customer is. But there are several common denominators to be found when we consider the customer in terms of what he is not. These things, I think, are fundamental to intelligent customer relationship and, it may be added, most of them apply pretty well to the vast majority of prospects as well.
- The customer is not dependent upon us—we are dependent upon him.
- The customer is not an interruption of our work—he is the purpose of it.
- The customer is not a rank outsider to our business—he is a part of it.
- The customer is not a statistic—he is a flesh-and-blood human being completely equipped with biases, prejudices, emotions, pulse, blood chemistry and possibly a deficiency of certain vitamins.
- The customer is not someone to argue with or match wits against—he is a person who brings us his wants. If we have sufficient imagination we will endeavor to handle them profitably to him and to ourselves.”
– Kenneth B. Elliott, Vice President in Charge of Sales for the Studebaker Corporation
In Conclusion
How does your brand handle customer service? Do you have any favorite quotes regarding customer service you want to share?
Image Credits
Featured Image: Rawpixel/Shutterstock.com
In-post Photo: Gajus/Shutterstock.com
