83 Inspiring, Helpful, and Funny Customer Service Quotes

Customer service is one of the key components of any successful business. If you don’t treat your customers well they are unlikely to return. Providing great customer service isn’t hard, yet many businesses struggle on this front. That’s why famous people in the world of business have come up with dozens of customer service quotes that will help guide anyone with their own business or who work in a customer service-based job to provide good customer service that will keep customers happy. 

The quotes below come from a wide variety of famous and successful individuals that will inspire and motivate you to deliver top-quality service. Others are helpful and valuable to those who want to offer great customer service and keep loyal customers, while some quotes are just plain funny and show the humorous side of the service industry. We’ve even included a Michael Scott quote to show there is humor in the customer service industry, no matter how difficult a job it can be. 

All of these excellent customer service quotes will resonate in some way or another and will motivate you to deliver outstanding customer service and a memorable customer experience. Share them on social media and help others create a fantastic customer service experience that will keep everyone happy. Better service will result in more sales, which generates higher profits, and a greater wage for you. Everyone wins. 

83 Inspiring, Helpful, and Funny Customer Service Quotes

Inspiring Customer Service Quotes

1. “It’s through vulnerability that human beings create connections. The more vulnerable we can be with one another, the more that we’ll trust one another and the more we’ll be able to collaborate effectively.” – Neil Blumenthal

2. “When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed.” – Indra Nooyi

3. “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” – Tony Hsieh

4. “Instead of focusing on the competition, focus on the customer.” – Scott Cook

5. “There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.” – William J. Brennan, Jr.

6. “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want.” – Steve Jobs

7. “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

8. “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

9. “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Theodore Roosevelt

10. “The customer’s perception is your reality.” – Kate Zabriskie

11. “Sales without customer service is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes.” – David Tooman

12. “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” – Roger Staubach

13. “You know your business model is broken when you’re using your customers.” – Paul Graham

14. “People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.” – Anton Chekhov

15. “The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.” – Roy H. Williams

16. “There’s no such thing as ‘hard sell’ and ‘soft sell.’ There’s only ‘smart sell’ and ‘stupid sell.’”- Leo Burnett

17. “Every great business is built on friendship.” – JC Penney

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

19. “Make every interaction count. Even the small ones. They are all relevant.” – Shep Hyken

20. “Never underestimate the power of the irate customer.” – Joel Ross

21. “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

22. “When the customer comes first, the customer will last.” – Robert Half

23. “Simplicity and good customer service will win every time.” – Richard Branson

24. “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” – Jan Carlzon

25. “Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

26. “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” – Mother Teresa 

27. “To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Douglas Adams

28. “Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

29. “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker

30. “If you can dream it you can do it.” – Walt Disney

31. “Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards.” – Elbert Hubbard

32. “Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” – James Cash Penney

33. “If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

34. “Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they are the only one!” – Laurice Leitao

35. “Good service is good business.” – Siebel Ad

36. “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

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

38. “Customer service isn’t a department, it’s a philosophy.” – Shep Hyken

39. “Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.” – Jeff Bezos

40. “The more you engage with customers, the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” – John Russell

Helpful Customer Service Quotes 

41. “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

42. “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

43.  “We don’t want to push our ideas onto customers, we simply want to make what they want.” – Laura Ashley

44. “Right or wrong, the customer is always right.” – Marshall Field

45. “The customer tells us how to stay in business, best that we listen.” – Pamela Nelson

46. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter

47. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

48. “If you make the customer a promise… make sure you deliver it.” – Merv Griffin

49. “Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.” – Sally Gronow

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

51. “Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team.” – Lisa Masiello

52. “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos

53. “I don’t like customer service, because I don’t believe the customer should have to pay and help out too.” – Jarod Kintz

54. “Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will.” – Kate Zabriskie

55. “The more advocates you have, the fewer ads you have to buy.” – Dharmesh Shah

56. “The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer.” – Shep Hyken

57. “It’s sad that we have become so accustomed to bad service that we’re shocked when we get good service.” – Neil Cavuto

58. “It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford

59. “It takes months to find a customer… seconds to lose one.” – Vince Lombardi

60. “Make a customer, not a sale.” – Katherine Barchetti

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

62. “Stop doing dumb things to customers.” – Peter Massey

63. “The customer is often wrong, but it’s our job to help them become right.” – Jeff Toister

64. “Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Tony Alessandra

65. “The irony of good customer service is that over time it will bring in more new customers than promotions and price slashing ever did!” – Susan Ward

66. “Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.” – Denis Waitley

67. “Customer service is not a department, it’s everyone’s job.”  – Ken Blanchard

68. “In the long run, no matter how good or successful you are or how clever or crafty, your business and its future are in the hands of the people you hire.” – Akio Morita

Funny Customer Service Quotes

69. “All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.” – Jeff Bezos

70. “If you don’t take care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey

71. “Say and do something positive that will help the situation; it doesn’t take any brains to complain.” – Robert A. Cook

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

73. “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford

74. “Thank you for calling customer service. If you’re calm and rational, press 1. If you’re a whiner, press 2. If you’re a hot head, press 3.” -Randy Glasbergen

75. “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.” – Benjamin Franklin

76. “A brand not responding on Twitter is like hanging up the phone on customers. With millions watching.” – Dave Kerpen

77. “The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.” – George Jessel

78. “Customers are like teeth. Ignore them and they’ll go away.” – Jerry Flanagan

79. “The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is not training them and keeping them.”  – Zig Ziglar

80. “You are serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work.” – Laurie McIntosh

81. “Customer service, they say, is dead. Actually, it isn’t. It’s just hiding behind a call center in Manila.” – Timothy Noah

82. “Your satisfaction is our top priority. So if you could act really satisfied, that would be a big help.” – Randy Glasbergen

83. “People will never be replaced by machines. In the end, life and business are about human connections. And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake. And to me the choice is easy.” – Michael Scott