Businesses today understand that success requires truly exceptional customer service. Poor customer service will result in lost customers, bad press and a bad reputation, which can be difficult to fix. But by providing outstanding customer service you create loyal customers who will likely become brand advocates, telling their friends, family and colleagues how great your business is.
We’ve collated a collection of inspiring, outstanding and sometimes unusual quotes, published in various books by notable experts. So if you are in need of a little motivation, insight or material for your next presentation, here are our noteworthy customer service quotes.
1. John Bessant
“In a world where things increasingly become commodities (especially services) the real differentiator becomes the personal experience you are able to create in the lives of your customers.”
2. Robert Dew
“Sadly, the stark truth of the matter is that very few large firms will prioritize their customers until their existence depends on becoming more customer centric.”
3. Jeff Gothelf
“Customers may may not know that they’re providing feedback, but they’re voting with their wallets.”
4. Matt Watkinson
“Few things generate more goodwill and repeat business than being effortless to deal with.”
5. Cindy Alvarez
“Too often we substitute internal industry and product knowledge for customer input.”
6. Matthew Dixon
“In a survey of over 3,000 stakeholders involved in a typical B2B purchase, we found that customers themselves report an average of 5.4 different people formally involved in a typical purchase decision.”
7. Joey Coleman
“While there are certainly differences between B2C and B2B operations, they are less significant than most people imagine. All business is ultimately the same, because all business boils down to humans dealing with humans.”
8. Tien Tzo
“Smart companies aren’t trying to pitch products to strangers anymore. They’re figuring out how to grow, monetize and build an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship with a dedicated base of subscribers.”
9. Matthew Dixon
“Despite suppliers’ improved ability to convey their unique value, there’s strong evidence that today’s customers are less willing than ever before to actually pay for that value, even when they perceive it.”
10. Jeff Gothelf
“The problem many of us face is that most of our management techniques were created at a time when the two-way customer conversation didn’t exist.”
11. Byron Deeter
“One recurring theme for every successful subscription-based company I’ve seen is a relentless focus on Customer Success.”
12. Eric Ries
“Companies both large and small have been drawn to a more nimble, iterative approach to innovation and growth, but as they soon discover, doing so requires a different way of interacting with current and prospective customers.”
13. Nick Mehta
“Mark Benioff created customer success out of his need to reduce churn. Steve Jobs created customer success out of his intuiton that it would increase attitudinal loyalty to Apple products.”
14. Maria Martinez
“Being truly customer-centric means having a deep understanding of your customers’ unmet needs.”
15. Robert Dew
“We believe making customers happy is about building remarkable experiences designed to leave them with specific feelings and memories worth sharing.”
16. Matt Watkinson
“Customer experiences that eliminate confusion, uncertainty and anxiety reap the rewards, generating a competitive advantage, loyalty and a peerless brand image.”
17. Joey Coleman
“There are many reasons why customers leave, but the main reason is that businesses systematically ignore the emotional journey of the customer.”
18. Eric Ries
“Our goal is to not simply understand customer behavior, but to learn how to change customer behavior and build a sustainable business.”
19. Matt Watkinson
“If the customer experience matters so much, why is it often so poor?”
20. Joey Coleman
“It’s the way that companies do business and the way their incentives and structures are set up that creates a blind spot around customer experience, and that blind spot is the problem.”
21. Adam Pisoni
“We have guesses about what’s good for the user, but we’re mostly wrong. No matter how good you are, you’re mostly wrong.”
22. Marty Cagan
“You need to become an acknowledged expert on the customer: their issues, pains, desires, how they think – and for business products, how they work, and how they decide to buy.”
23. Jen Campbell
“CUSTOMER: I read a book in the sixties. I don’t remember the author, or the title. But it was green, and it made me laugh. Do you know which one I mean?”
24. Philipp Klaus
“There is widespread agreement that customer experience is different from, and more complex than, service quality and customer satisfaction, and that it is context specific.”
Book Sources
While there are some excellent online resources, here at Customer Thermometer we also like to have a library of the best books on customer experience and customer service. Here are the book sources we used to compile these outstanding customer service quotes.
- Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
- The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences by Matt Watkinson
- The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results by Matthew Dixon
- The Customer Experience Book: How to Design, Measure and Improve Customer Experience in your Business by Alan Pennington
- Customer Experience Innovation: How to Get a Lasting Market Edge by Robert Dew
- Measuring Customer Experience: How to Develop and Execute the Most Profitable Customer Experience Strategies by Philipp Klaus
- Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman
- Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
- Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Mehta
- Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy by Cindy Alvarez
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
- Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously by Jeff Gothelf
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