9 Great Customer Service Examples to Inspire Your Team

Customer service examples showcase the different strategies used to respond to your customers needs. Since good customer service can make or break a business, it’s vital to learn from real-world examples and gain insights where you can.

Our research finds that 88% of customers say good service makes them likely to return to your business. From personalized interactions to swift problem resolution, great customer service examples highlight how companies use customer service software to influence this type of loyalty. Keep reading to learn more. It'll help your customers — and your bottom line.

• What is great customer service?
• Why is customer service important?
• 9 examples of great customer service
• 3 key elements of a great customer service experience
• Companies that excel at customer service
• How Salesforce can help provide great customer service

Great customer service is all about making customers feel seen, heard, and valued. At its core, it’s not just about solving problems — it’s about building relationships that drive trust and long-term loyalty. Key qualities like respect, responsiveness, reliability, empathy, and professionalism help create positive, lasting impressions that keep customers coming back.

• Respect: Respect means treating customers with dignity and honesty.
• Responsiveness: Responsiveness is about providing quick answers to their questions.
• Reliability: Reliability means being consistent and fulfilling promises.
• Empathy: Empathy involves understanding and validating their feelings, which can help resolve conflicts.
• Professionalism: Professionalism ensures that interactions are accurate and respectful.

When customers feel heard, understood, and respected, they’re far more likely to return. Good customer service doesn’t just solve problems — it builds loyalty.

The importance of customer service rests in how it directly affects customer satisfaction and loyalty. For businesses of any size, great service can be a key differentiator in a crowded market. For large enterprises looking to scale, a focus on customer service can ensure consistent, high-quality experiences across every customer service channel and location.

Good customer service helps you stand out. One way this happens is through positive customer reviews. Platforms like G2 are filled with customer reviews that highlight not just the product, but the support experience behind it. Positive reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations can attract new business, while poor service can quickly damage your reputation. Delivering great service builds trust, makes customers feel valued, and fosters long-term relationships that fuel sustainable growth.

Great customer service isn’t just about solving issues — it’s about creating experiences that earn trust and keep customers coming back. From proactive outreach to personalized support, here are nine customer service examples of how to help elevate your strategy, plus how technology can make each one even more impactful.

The best customer service happens before customers even know they need it. Think subscription renewal reminders or automatic reorder suggestions for products customers buy regularly.

This isn't mind-reading. It's using the data you already have to deliver great customer care. For instance, Service Cloud can spot patterns in customer behavior and even trigger automatic alerts when a customer’s subscription is about to lapse. It’s all about helping customers before they get frustrated.

No one likes to wait — especially your customers. A one-hour email response used to be considered fast, but expectations have shifted. According to our recent customer service stats, 77% of customers now expect to interact with a company representative immediately.

Meeting those expectations means equipping your team with tools that speed up service. With Service Cloud’s AI-powered support, for example, customer service reps get real-time recommendations, automated case summaries, and next-best actions — all right in their workspace console. This helps reps respond faster and more accurately, cutting down on delays and keeping the conversation moving smoothly. The result? Quicker resolutions and happier customers.

Your customers don't need a human to reset their password or track their order. They need humans for the stuff that‌ matters.

Customer service AI agents have come a long way. Tools like Agentforce can handle even more. AI agents built with Agentforce provide instant, 24/7 support for common customer needs like order tracking, password resets, and basic troubleshooting. For more complex issues, they can guide customers through advanced self-service steps or escalate cases to customer service reps — complete with full context for a seamless handoff.

Personalized service interactions involve tailoring your support to meet individual customer needs and preferences. This can make customers feel special and understood.

Personalization isn't about using someone's name seventeen times in an email. It's about remembering what matters to them. Platforms like Service Cloud keep track of customer preferences, purchase history, and past interactions. This can lead to a more positive customer service experience and help build a stronger emotional connection with your customers.

Self-service in support allows customers to resolve issues independently. This can be through FAQs, AI agents, or online resources like knowledge base articles. Self-service options are convenient and can save customers time.

Most customers want to resolve simple issues on their own and when it’s convenient for them. A customer self-service portal can help your customers help themselves. With Service Cloud, your customer data personalizes self-service. You can address each customer by name, display a record of their past purchases, and even serve up relevant offers based on their activity history.

Customer self-service is a win for your business too. By enabling customers to find answers on their own, it frees up your service reps to focus on more complex issues and high-value tasks like upselling and cross-selling. The result? Faster resolutions for customers and more opportunities to maximize revenue.

The best support call is the one that solves today's problem — and prevents tomorrow's. Don't just fix an issue. Help customers avoid it next time. Share tips, send helpful articles, and offer quick training.

And use technology to fine-tune how you help. Imagine a software company might offer tutorials and webinars to help users get the most out of their software. With Service Cloud, the company has access to AI-powered analytics and insights that help them better understand where customers are facing challenges. This data can be used to refine your educational content and improve the overall customer service experience.

Today’s customers text, tweet, email, and chat. So should you. Omnichannel support means offering multiple channels for customer interaction.

True omnichannel support means the conversation flows seamlessly between channels. A customer starts on chat, continues via email, and finishes on the phone – and your team sees it all as one conversation. Platforms like Service Cloud connect all of those dots through digital customer service.

Empathy isn't a soft skill. It's a business skill. In customer support, empathy involves showing genuine understanding and concern for customer issues. This can help de-escalate conflicts and even foster cooperation.

This is where having a 360 degree view of your customer can really help. When your team has the full picture of a customer's experience — like that provided by Service Cloud's unified view — they can respond with real understanding, not just scripts.

Feedback without action is just noise. Listening to customers and then acting on their behalf is customer service gold. If you claim to value customer feedback, these are the moments to practice what you preach.

When a customer says your checkout is broken, don't just apologize and move on. Fix it. Service Cloud, for instance, can track customer feedback themes, escalate urgent issues automatically, and follow up to make sure problems‌ get solved. Because saying you care and proving you care are two very different things.

A great customer service experience is built on several key customer service principles. These include consistency, personalization, and responsiveness.

• Consistency. Consistency in service providing the same quality of care every single time, to every single customer. Customers are more likely to repeat their business if they can expect the same quality of care if they need it again.
• ​​Personalization. Personalization in service means knowing your customers well enough to treat them like individual humans, not just numbers in your company’s ledger. Acknowledging the person behind each request can build customer loyalty.
• Responsiveness. Responsiveness is about providing quick answers and resolutions. It’s about showing up for customers when they need you, not making them wait for customer care.

As technologies evolve, so do best practices in customer service. There are free learning tools, such as myTrailhead , Salesforce’s free online learning platform, that can help you and your team stay on top of key customer service principles.

Consider learning about great customer service examples from professionals outside of your organization. One new resource is the Serviceblazer Community on Slack , an exclusive meeting place just for service professionals. From customer service to field service, the Serviceblazer Community is where peers grow, learn, and celebrate everything service.

Some companies are known for their exceptional customer service. Here are a few examples:

Amazon is a leader in customer service. They offer fast delivery, easy returns, and 24/7 support. Their customer service team is always ready to help, no matter the issue. This level of service has helped Amazon build a loyal customer base and a strong reputation in the market.

Making sure that every interaction is smooth and hassle-free keeps customers coming back. Amazon also uses customer feedback to continuously improve their service, making it even better over time.

Apple is another company that excels in customer service. Their support is reliable and professional, with a focus on quick and effective issue resolution. Apple's customer service representatives are well-trained and knowledgeable, which helps them provide top-notch service. This has contributed to Apple's reputation for quality and customer satisfaction.

Apple's stores and online support are designed to be friendly and efficient. They understand that a good customer experience can make all the difference. Apple also uses technology to enhance their service, such as virtual assistants and online tutorials.

Spotify stands out for its personalized service and proactive support. They offer tailored music recommendations and often address issues before customers even notice them. For example, if a song is missing from a playlist, Spotify might send a notification to the user.

Spotify's attention to detail and commitment to customer satisfaction are evident in every interaction. They show that they value their users and are dedicated to providing the best service possible.

Many of Salesforce’s own customers are in the customer service business. So, expectations are high. Salesforce meets those expectations by using its own groundbreaking customer service management software, built into the Service Cloud platform that offers a 360-view of customers. With cross-cloud data, Salesforce gets the same AI-driven insights it offers to customers.

Salesforce Service Cloud and Agentforce work together to deliver faster, more personalized, and highly scalable customer service experiences. With Service Cloud, support teams gain a 360-degree view of each customer — including past interactions, purchase history, and preferences — enabling them to provide empathetic, efficient support across customer service channels like chat, email, phone, and social. Built-in automation handles routine tasks such as case creation, routing, and follow-ups, helping reps resolve issues more quickly and consistently.

Agentforce, a proactive autonomous AI application, takes this even further. AI agents built with Agentforce can autonomously resolve both common and complex customer inquiries while staying within your business’s trusted guardrails. For customer service reps, Agentforce acts as a real-time assistant, summarizing case history, surfacing relevant knowledge base articles, and suggesting next-best actions to accelerate resolution and improve service quality.

Together, Service Cloud and Agentforce for Service help businesses deliver more connected, intelligent, and human-centered customer experiences at scale.