Being a support agent has got to be one of the most trying jobs a person can have. Dealing with unhappy customers in your helpdesk isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time. So, if you want your team to treat your customers as invited guests, even under tense circumstances, it’s your job to motivate them. These excellent customer service quotes can help.
Here’s How to Leverage Customer Service Quotes to Inspire Your Support Team
Whether you’re a support team manager or the owner of your company, you know that keeping your staff encouraged and upbeat at work is crucial to efficient customer service operations, especially in the face of challenging interactions with frustrated customers. It’s one way to reduce the load on your support team. So, you need to do what you can to keep your environment cheerful.
Think of your team as a group of football players and yourself their cheerleader. You need to use positive language, words of affirmation, and other motivational tactics to keep your support machine well-oiled and increase customer loyalty. So, where do customer service quotes come in?
Chalkboard/ Whiteboard
Yes, offices still use whiteboards or chalkboards. If you’re one of them, this might be the best way to deliver your quotes. If you work in an office with your team, you can use a chalkboard or whiteboard, posted in a visible place, to display your motivational tidbits for the month. You don’t need any animations or tricks to get the point across -- just make sure the quote is written legibly.
Email is one of the most commonly used communication channels in every business. So, alternatively, if you work with a remote team, a monthly email with a quote followed by your own thoughts can help promote an optimistic vibe within your operations. Your staff is likely checking emails all day anyway. So, you can be sure they’ll see your message, and they can save it to their personal desktop if they want to. (By the way, check out these 16 email templates to help your agents deliver quality service quickly.)
Desk Reminder
Everyone has a desk, right? If this is true, and if your team is small enough, you can give (by hand or mail, depending on where your staff works) each employee a poster or card to display at their own desk. They can pin it to the wall behind their workspace or keep it in a drawer to remind them each time they open it.
Custom Calendars
And, if you’re feeling creative, you can create custom desk calendars with a new quote displayed for each month of the year. This idea is nice because it’s functional as well as fun. Plus, it gives staff the feeling that they’ve gotten a gift. Gifts in themselves are pretty effective workplace motivators.
Mass Text Messages
Finally, if you want to leverage technology, consider setting up a staff opt-in for an SMS campaign wherein you send the quotes directly to the mobile phones of your support agents. Or, send a text message to each support agent individually. The great thing about this idea is that your agents are likely on their phones when they’re not working, so it keeps your operations at the front of their minds.
A Customer Service Quote for Each Month of the Year
Now, let’s look at a year’s worth of quotes to keep your team feeling like their perky, happy selves. Whether you’re sending out a monthly email all year long, or posting your quote next to the portrait on the wall of your employee of the month, you’ll need twelve of them -- one for each month of the year. So, here you go!
- January: “A customer talking about their experience with you is worth ten times that which you write or say about yourself.”
- David J. Greer
January is the beginning of a new year. In most places, it’s still cold outside, the holidays are over, and your staff are just getting back into the swing of things after the holiday rush at work and festivities at home. When it comes to an inspiring customer service quote, you need one that sets the stage for the rest of the year.
What better place to start than reminding your staff that their performance at work will affect the entire company. The above quote is from David J. Greer, coach and author of Wind in Your Sails: Vital Strategies That Accelerate Your Entrepreneurial Growth. In this book, Greer uses sailing metaphors and experiential wisdom to convey some powerful business messages.
The above quote should warm your team up nicely. And, it should remind them that, at the end of the day, a review can make or break your business. So, their job is to deliver the kind of experience that enhances your company’s word-of-mouth marketing, not harms it.
- February: “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
- Steve Jobs
The second month of the year is a time of romance. February 14th is Valentine’s Day. At this time, most people across the globe celebrate their love in remembrance of St. Valentine, the patron of affianced couples. So, your quote for the month should at least attempt to reflect this. And, it should inspire the team to want to lean-in more intimately to customers’ needs.
Fortunately for you, the late Steve Jobs, magnate, entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Apple, said just what your team needs to hear. His advice is to get close to the customer. You and your team can use the tokens of affection you see around you as reminders of how to treat shoppers that come to you with their problems.
This customer service quote serves as a reminder that the relationship between your brand and your shoppers should feel like a personal one -- there should be a spark ready to ignite. And, when you really care about people, you naturally want what’s best for them. Since you’re theoretically the experts in everything related to your product offering, you should know what to offer before their questions are even asked.
- March: “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
March is the month for St. Patrick’s Day (and my great grandmother’s birthday) celebrations and Spring Equinox. In a nutshell, festivities and fun happen in March. People are getting out and having a good time. So, this month’s customer service quote should reflect this.
And, guess what? Jeff Bezos, entrepreneur, investor, and CEO/ founder of Amazon, can shine some light on what you need. Follow his lead and be amazing hosts to your party guests. You can’t offer your shoppers drinks, but you can give them an experience that they won’t forget. And, if your team is having fun, so will your customers. Make each day better than the last.
Help you support team imagine that your brand is a party and everyone on the other end of the line is a welcomed friend. Cultivating a great shopping and support experience is a surefire way to increase your eCommerce conversion rates and make every day more enjoyable. When everyone is having fun, everyone wins!
- April: “Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!”
- Gene Buckley
April showers bring May flowers. The word April is derived from Latin aperit, which means “open.” And, one of the most important customer service skills your agents can possess is the ability to be open to the needs of your shoppers. At the very least, the needs of the customer must come before those of the support staff. So, remind your team with the perfect customer service quote.
Gene Buckley has you covered. The senior director of customer success, health, and life sciences at Microsoft knows the right time to be smart -- in the shower. The right time to be smart is not when your customer needs you. Actually, when you’re working, you need to be humble.
Here’s a brighter, more emotional way to say the customer is always right. Save your critical thinking for the moments when you’re alone -- before you fall asleep at night and in the shower. When you’re serving, be present and serve. Listen and make sure the customer knows you’re listening.
- May: “Make a customer, not a sale.”
- Katherine Barchetti
In May, flowers are starting to bloom, Spring is officially in the air, and people are experiencing more happiness in general. For some people, life seems more colorful. So, this month, you might want to keep things simpler than usual. You might want to inspire agents with a quote that gets straight to the point.
The retail success story, Katherine Barchetti was Pittsburgh’s retail success story. While her stores are no longer open, her wisdom lives on. She built an empire based on the idea that the customer was much more important to success than sales. In reality, the two go hand-in-hand. But, her words are a great reminder for any support agent.
Envision your customer as a person, not a series of dollar signs. You don’t like being treated like a thing, and neither do your shoppers. Help your agents remember this wisdom with the above quote. In the end, this is the simplest idea at the core of every successful customer service ecosystem.
- June: “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”
- Henry Ford
June is the first month of Summer. Children are getting out of school, barbecues are starting, and people are getting outdoors more. They’re also spending. And, if you focus on the right things, you could be a major player in where they spend. And, the right things aren’t what most people think. How can you remind your agents what the right frame of mind is at this time of year?
Henry Ford, the magnate behind Ford motors, requires no introduction, as his empire is strong even decades after his passing. What did Ford have to say about customer service? Basically, he said it is everything. Absolute devotion to service is his idea of the key ingredient for success. And, it would be unwise to disagree. So, share his wisdom with your agents in June.
Let this serve as a reminder of how truly important the job of a support agent is in the big picture. Service is the heart of a thriving brand.
- July: “Customers want positive, consistent experiences. Consistency creates confidence, which can lead to retention and loyalty.”
- Shep Hyken
July is when freedom rings. In the United States, independence day falls in July, when people are getting together playing games and lighting off fireworks. Hint: this happens every year, consistently. And, people continue to celebrate the same way each time. So, it might be a helpful idea to share a reminder with your staff about the value of consistencye, potentially with the help of call scripts. But, how?
Take a look at this quote from Shep Hyken, who speaks nationwide to expert audiences about customer service and experience. He says that consistent positivity is what drives retention and loyalty from shoppers. Hyken has been featured on major television channels and is trusted and endorsed by enterprise brands. His advice is worthwhile for any support team.
Not only is the job of a support agent to be positive and make customers happy -- true satisfaction also stems from a consistent experience of your brand. When people know what to expect from you, they begin to trust you. And, when people trust you, they want to put effort into maintaining a relationship.
Your support agents, by delivering a consistent, positive experience, play a major role in the success of your company. Share this quote to remind them.
- August: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
- Bill Gates
August is the time of year when parents are getting ready to send their kids back to school. Schedules are being rattled yet again. And, it’s the time of year when people are soaking up the last of their Summer vacations, which might cause a bit of anxiety. There’s so much going on that consumers might be a bit more on-edge than usual. How can you help your agents cope?
Your go-to for this month, Bill Gates -- principal founder of the Microsoft corporation -- provides an excellent reminder of the fact that not every learning opportunity comes wrapped in a pretty package. In fact, the dissatisfied customers you come across can be the best teachers. Use this as a reminder to find the silver lining and take everything you can from every situation.
Not every support experience within your operations is going to feel pleasant. So, use dissatisfaction as an opportunity to learn about products, service tactics, and communication. Your agents should be learning how to transmute tense situations into opportunities to optimize your brand experience. So, this month use the above quote to remind them of this.
- September: “Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.”
- Sally Gronow
Ah, September -- the beginning of Fall and prep time for your final quarter operations. You’re probably getting ready for the busiest season of the year. While you’re trying to figure out how to cut costs, your support agents are still plugging away at their jobs, wondering if they’re going to have to help train the new prospects showing up for your customer service interviews. What’s a good quote to share with your team?
Sally Gronow is the head of customer service at Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water in the UK. And, while you may not have heard of her, she has a simplistic yet genius answer. Your support staff could find great wisdom in the reminder that a crappy experience is going to cost so much more than a great one, even if it takes more effort to provide it; use the idea to keep your service team motivated this month.
Sometimes, it can feel like a lot of work to help a customer through an emotionally mucky issue. But, in the end, it will take a lot more effort to dig yourself out of the hole created when you fail to help them. Poor reviews, loss of retention, and devastating negative word of mouth can kill your business. The responsibility of going the extra mile to deliver satisfaction falls on your support team.
- October: “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department; it should be the entire company.”
- Tony Hsieh
October is a time for harvest; this is the time of year when people come together to reap the rewards of the past year’s efforts. Community is one of the main themes of the month outside the office. So, you should try to create the same theme inside your company. And, luckily, just the quote exists to remind your support team.
The CEO of Zappos (an outrageously successful online shoe and clothing retailer), Tony Hsieh, said something that fits perfectly with the idea of community. He said that customer service is more than just one group of people within a company, that it should be everyone in the company. And, his wisdom is the perfect reminder for this time of year.
You may or may not be able to depend on the other forward-facing departments to have the same level of impact as the service team. But, remember that a support agent’s job is the backbone of the company. And, together, your team can move mountains. In the end, the ability to serve the customers well is the central indicator of a successful company.
- November: “Next time you get bad service, speak up. Remember: it’s your money you are defending – money you worked hard for. Tell the company and others. Use the internet and social media. That’s how customer service will improve for all of us.”
- Larry Winget
For every retailer, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are days you’ve been prepping for all year. And, your support team knows this. If you participate in the promotions, these days are going to be your busiest days of the year, especially where customer support is concerned. It might be a good idea to get your team ready by flipping the script -- what are consumers (not CEOs and support experts saying?
Larry Winget, author and self-proclaimed “Pitbull of Personal Development,™” encourages consumers to speak out when their expectations aren’t met by customer service teams and brands. The people are cheering each other on with empowering words to ‘say something’ when they’re dissatisfied. So, while your team is under enough pressure to succeed already, it’s crucial that they know how a bad experience could affect your operations.
Just to stir things up a bit, throw in a customer service quote from a consumer. Make sure your support staff knows that everything they say and do will be scrutinized by the customers they are serving. And, it also has the potential to be seen and heard by the public. So, remind your team to give people something positive to talk about!
- December: “Exceed your customers’ expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more.”
- Sam Walton
You’ve made it through Black Friday, but your year isn’t over. Consumers are still shopping for last-minute holiday gifts and they’re celebrating. They’re giving each other gifts, sharing time together, and partying it up this time of year. What they’re trying to do is exceed their loved ones’ expectations to express their love.
Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club, said something that fits the sentiment perfectly. He said that companies should go above and beyond the expectations of their shoppers. And, that’s how he grew a small kingdom for himself, from the ground up.
Here’s a little reminder that the best practice for agents is to take each interaction a step further than expected -- from dissatisfaction to delight. Keep your team reminded of this and you might be able to crown yourself as well.
What other customer service quotes do you use to motivate your team?
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