75 Inspirational Customer Service Quotes

Zuzanna Bocian

14 min read

Jun 20, 2024

Over the past few years, customer satisfaction has become extremely important. 83% of customers show loyalty to businesses that offer great customer service in responding to and resolving their complaints (source).

Many renowned motivational speakers, business leaders, and customer service experts have discussed the importance of a strong customer service culture. So, I shortlisted 75 inspirational customer service quotes to help you understand the cruciality of customer experience.

I divided the customer service quotes into the below subheadings:

Inspirational customer service quotes

Top entrepreneurial personalities emphasize offering exceptional customer service. They know the vitality of great customer service in terms of business success.

So, read these inspirational customer service quotes to uplift your game as well:

1. “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, former CEO of McDonald’s

2. “The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.” – Shiv Singh, business leader and author

3. “To earn your customers’ respect (and eventually love), you first have to respect those customers. That is why Golden Rule behavior is embraced by most of the winning companies.” – Colleen Barrett, former president of Southwest Airlines

4. “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, former president of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania

5. “The customer’s perception is your reality.” – Kate Zabriskie, author

6. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter, former VP of British Airways

7. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

8. “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” – Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple

9. “Understanding that every person has their own life, their own hardships, and their own problems really puts things into perspective. We don’t have to solve all their problems. We don’t even have to solve a single problem, honestly. Just listening, being compassionate, and responding kindly is enough to diffuse almost every difficult situation we’ve faced.” – Nicole Thelin, founder of Low Income Relief

10. “It’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.” – Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX

11. “There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.” – Michael Phelps, most decorated Olympian of all time

12. “If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.” – Jim Rohn, author and motivational speaker

13. “You can’t transform something you don’t understand. If you don’t know what’s going well and what’s not in the current experience, how will you know what to redesign and what to continue doing in the future?” – Annette Franz, founder and CEO of CX Journey

14. “The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but exceed them—preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.” – Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group

15. “When you help others feel important, you help yourself feel important too.” – David J. Schwartz, writer and coach

16. “It’s not the number of followers you have or ’likes’ you get, it’s the strength of your bond with your followers that indicates how much anyone cares about what you have to say. In this game, the one with the most real relationships wins.” – Gary Vaynerchuk, serial entrepreneur and author

17. “Clear content, simple navigation, and answers to customer questions have the biggest impact on business value. Advanced technology matters much less.” – Jakob Nielsen, PhD., Principal at Nielsen Norman Group

18. “Your talent and the right opportunities open the first few doors, but your attitude opens the rest.” – Sneh Sharma, founder and CEO of Ittisa

Motivational customer service quotes

A business can optimize its customer service approach if motivated to deliver the best customer service experience.

1. “If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service, you can make a fortune.” – Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and author

2. “Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers.” – Kate Nassar, The People-Skills Coach

3. “Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Dr. Tony Alessandra, author and business expert

4. “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Co.

5. “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we’re the hosts. It’s our job to make the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon

6. “You don’t earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day.” – Jeffrey Gitomer, author and professional speaker

7. “Make the customer the hero of your story.” – Ann Handley, keynote speaker, writer, and marketer

8. “I believe customer service doesn’t cost — it pays. Just like advertising earns money by bringing people in, customer service pays by bringing people back.” – Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations

9. “All lasting business is built on friendship.” – Alfred A. Montapert, author

10. “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” – Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos

11. “Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It’s a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do if you’re to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders, mentor, speaker, coach, and writer

12. “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, father of India

13. “Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they’re the only one!” – Laurice Leitao, customer service professional at SeraCare Life Sciences

14. “Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They’ll just walk away.” – Marilyn Suttle, success coach

15. “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, mentor and coach

16. “Customer service is everything and anything that touches a customer — directly or indirectly. Customer service means servicing customers, and it’s so much more than just solving problems or addressing complaints.” – Joseph Jafee, founder of the Alpha Collective

17. “If you’re not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey, author, coach, and speaker

18. “Customer experience is so much more than improving what’s not working. It can be about creating more meaningful experiences that transform an organization. Innovating around the customer journey can lead to impressive results and help customers in ways that provide not just fewer ruined days but incredibly positive experiences that better their lives.” – Jeannie Walters, CEO of Experience Investigators and CX speaker

19. “Strive to provide the best possible experience for customers, even if it means making a few sacrifices along the way.” – Peter Monkhouse, founder of ICL SA

20. “Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.” – Kevin Stirtz, author

Funny customer service quotes

Tough situations are part of the business, but handling them humorously can make all the difference. Let’s now look at some of the customer service quotes:

1. “Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will.” – Kate Zabriskie, President of Business Training Works

2. “Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, re-read Rule 1.” – Stew Leonard, founder of Stew Leonard’s

3. “Biggest question: Isn’t it really ‘customer helping’ rather than customer service? And wouldn’t you deliver better service if you thought of it that way?” – Jeffrey Gitomer, author and professional speaker

4. “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton, founder of Walmart

5. “The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.” – Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon

6. “I won’t complain. I just won’t come back.” – Brown & Williamson tobacco ad

7. “Sales without Customer Service is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes.” – David Tooman, customer service professional

8. “Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.” – Jeffrey Gitomer, author and sales trainer

Great customer service quotes

Good customer service costs a bit but has many benefits. It is the key to long-term business success in the current competitive landscape. 

1. “It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company

2. “Good customer service is about understanding your client’s needs and then exceeding them.” – Cory Cabral, CEO and president of Proactive Access

3. "[We] are rich only as [we] give. [One] who gives great service gets great rewards." – Elbert Hubbard, writer and philosopher

4. “Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Damon Richards, customer care expert

5. “To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author, and aviator

6. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping [them] to solve a problem or achieve a goal, not [just] selling a product or service.” – Brian Tracy, author and public speaker

7. “When I think about great service, it’s about how you’re every interaction you have with the customer and use that as a way to improve their perception of your organization.” – Jon Herstein, SVP of customer success at Box

8. “After-sales service is more important than assistance before sales. It is through such service that one gets permanent customers.” – Kōnosuke Matsushita, founder of Panasonic

9. “Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to make them feel valued, heard, and understood. The more you can do this, the more likely they’re to come back or recommend your business to others.” – Sarah Walters, marketing manager at The Whit Group

10. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping [them] to solve a problem or achieve a goal, not [just] selling a product or service.” – Brian Tracy, author and public speaker

11. “Good customer service means that we leave customers better than we found them. Even if we can’t solve the problem or do what they want us to do, we can at least smile, be cheerful, and respond compassionately to each person. If our customers leave with a smile, even when they’re having a hard time, then we’ve done well.” – Nicole Thelin, founder of Low Income Relief

Bad customer service quotes

Bad customer service can severely damage your brand despite delivering top-notch products or services. Check the below bad customer service quotes to understand the impacts of bad customer experience:

1. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft

2. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, American memoirist and poet

3. “It takes months to find a customer… seconds to lose one.” – Vince Lombardi, football coach

4. “In the world of Internet customer service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.” – Doug Warner, former CEO of J.P. Morgan & Co.

5. “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” – Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the United States

6. “Once they’ve exhausted all possibilities and the customer still isn’t satisfied with the outcome, the customer service team needs to know they can end the conversation without fear of repercussions from management. You’ll save your team a tremendous amount of stress if they know there is a cutoff point when dealing with unhappy customers.” – James Green, owner of Cardboard Cutouts

7. “If you don’t care, your customer never will.” – Marlene Blaszczyk, founder, editor of Motivateus

8. “Always keep in mind the old retail adage: Customers remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price.” – Lauren Freedman, author and retail veteran

9. “The worst thing you can do is meet expectations one time, fall short another, and exceed every now and then. I guarantee you’ll drive your customers nuts and into the hands of the competition the first chance they get.” – Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, Authors

Happy customer quotes

Happy or satisfied customers are the key to retention, loyalty, and sales. Below are a few happy customer quotes that reflect their importance for the business growth:

1. “Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team.” – Lisa Masiello, founder and chief marketing officer at TECHmarc Labs

2. “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” – Michael LeBoeuf, business author

3. “When the customer comes first, the customer will last.” – Robert Half, founder of Robert Half International

4. “One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.” – Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker

5. “Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” – J. C. Penny, founder of JCPenney

6. “A brand is what a business does; reputation is what people remember.” – Ted Rubin, author

7. “If the end result is customer satisfaction, your business will thrive. If the end result is customer loyalty, your business will bloom.” – Pooja Agnihotri, author of 17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail

8. “Let’s take most of the money we would’ve spent on paid advertising and paid marketing, and instead of spending it on that, invest it in the customer experience/customer service and then let our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth.” – Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos

9. “Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.” – Chip R. Bell, world-renowned authority on customer loyalty and service innovation

Bonus tip: HelpDesk – your ultimate companion for the top-notch customer service

Now that we’ve examined the thoughts of renowned personalities about customer service, it’s time to use customer service quotes for work and up your customer service game. That’s where HelpDesk comes into action.

HelpDesk is a powerful customer service software that allows you to manage all customer service activities from one modernized platform. 

With HelpDesk, you get:

• Ticket management: Log, track, and prioritize customer tickets efficiently.

• Centrally manage customer messages: Access a centralized place to manage all customer messages, whether email, contact forms, live chat, etc.

• Automated workflow: Automate your manual or repetitive customer service tasks with custom workflows and AI features.

• Asynchronous communication: Seamless communication between customers and support agents, no matter the communication channel.

• Proactive outreach: Reach out to customers proactively to offer timely assistance.

• Team collaboration: Collaborate with other team members to resolve customer issues.

• Feedback collection: Easily ask, receive, and analyze feedback from customers.

Summary

Customer service holds tremendous potential in leading a business to success. A positive customer service experience encourages 89% of consumers to make another purchase (source). The above customer service quotes are proof from experts on the potential of customer service.

I’ll wrap up this article by recommending you emphasize optimizing the customer service experience from today and use powerful tools like HelpDesk to streamline customer service processes.