27 Customer Service Statistics for 2025 | SlickText Infographic
Updated March 12, 2025
No matter what industry you’re in, chances are you probably have at least a few competitors — competitors who are fighting for the same customers you’re trying to get. Businesses are striving for excellence in every area possible so they can stand out amongst their competition. Delivering excellent customer service is a critical factor for business success and customer retention.
Staying up-to-date on 2025’s updated customer service statistics can help you understand how much attention to focus on customer service and how to create a customer service strategy that makes a big impact on your bottom line. Great customer service is crucial for effectively serving and retaining customers.
Customer Service in 2025
Want to make a lasting impression on your customers? Focus your attention on customer service by creating innovative ways to reach out to your customers with text promotions, helpful information, and important reminders.
Plus, make sure you’re reading the research that shows how consumers prefer to be contacted by brands these days. Your delivery channel is just as important as your content. The best brands are mixing in all sorts of communication channels to stay in touch. From basic phone calls and emails to social media and sending mass texts, it’s important to understand how to effectively reach your customers and maintain a healthy relationship.
This infographic shows you everything you need to know about statistics on customer service and how mass texting can help your support strategy.
Customer Service Infographic in Review
- 42% of employees are unable to efficiently resolve customer issues due to broken processes or disconnected systems. Effective customer service requires customer service agents to manage customer expectations and maintain continuity during support interactions.
- 89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service. Call center agents play a crucial role in customer service interactions, and investing in their training can significantly enhance overall service quality.
- Consumers are twice as likely to share their bad customer service experiences than they are to talk about positive experiences.
- A customer is four times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service-related versus price or product-related.
- It takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one negative experience.
- 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they’re being treated.
- 55% of consumers would pay more for a better customer experience.
- 83% of consumers require some degree of customer support while making an online purchase.
- A 10% increase in customer retention levels results in a 30% increase in the value of a company.
- A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience.
- The top ten consumer-ranked elements of a great online experience include
- 82%: Getting my issue resolved quickly
- 56%: Getting my issue resolved in a single interaction
- 45%: Dealing with a friendly customer service representative
- 37%: Being able to follow up with the same person if necessary
- 28%: Being able to record, print, and/or save a copy of the interaction with the brand
- 27%: Having a follow-up after the inquiry to ensure satisfaction
- 27%: Providing me with customized offers
- 21%: Being able to do other things while my issue is resolved
- 17%: Not having to speak to someone
- 17%: Having a personalized experience
- Customer service experience based on company size:
- 35.9% of large companies miss customer expectations, but only 5.7% of small companies miss customer expectations.
- 60.9% of large customers meet customer expectations, while that number is 56.3% for small businesses.
- Only 3.2% of large businesses exceed customer expectations, while 38% of small businesses do so.
Customer Expectations and Experience
Customer expectations are higher than ever. A staggering 80% of customers expect a response from companies within 24 hours on social media. This means businesses must be equipped to engage and resolve issues promptly. But it’s not just about speed; 70% of customers expect a seamless experience across all communication channels, whether it’s phone, email, or social media.
The importance of quick responses cannot be overstated, with 90% of customers considering an immediate response important when contacting a company. For 60% of customers, “immediate” means a waiting time of 10 minutes or less. Using a customer engagement SMS platform can help you meet these expectations.
How To Improve Your Customer Service with SMS
Statistics on customer service clearly show just how vital a good experience is to the success (and profit) of your business. The growing importance of self-service in customer service highlights the need for businesses to balance traditional approaches with modern self-service technologies.
With SMS, you can get more out of your customer service while putting in minimal time and money — especially if you take advantage of marketing automation workflows. Even if you don’t use SMS automation, you can use SMS to respond one-on-one to any incoming customer requests.
With our customer service infographic in mind, here are some steps if you’re considering adding texting for customer engagement.
Set Clear Communication Standards
Texting is a very personal method of communication. It’s how people stay in touch with those closest to them, at all times of the day. If you use SMS to communicate with customers, they may expect responses during hours when you’re not in operation. Make sure to outline the exact timeframe when your team is available to respond so you can prevent any customer frustration. You can even use a tool like ChatGPT to write out your automated responses with AI texts.
Make Your Customer Service Simple
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What are the common questions they might have? How easy is it to use your product? If they want to return something, what’s the process like? If something breaks, will customer service know how to fix it? Walk through what you think a customer’s main questions and concerns might be, then train your team to respond to them. Speaking to a real person is crucial for complex issues like payment disputes or contract modifications, as customers prefer engaging directly with human representatives for nuanced concerns.
You can even set up an automated workflow that sends customers to specific help articles for common, easy-to-fix problems. Automating your customer service texts can save you time and money, and you can send people directly to a representative if their question isn’t answered.
Personalize the Customer Experience
The last thing you want to do is make your customers feel like just another ticket to process. Even if you’re automating your customer service, you can still include personal information to make them feel heard and valued. Using merge tags, you can insert customer data that you’ve collected — like names, locations, and order dates — into your messages.
Take it a step further with segmentation, which allows you to sort your subscribers into groups based on criteria like zip codes, order value, preferred products, and more. If you have product updates, recalls, or anything in between, you can sort which customers the information is relevant to, and send text blasts to only them. You can even send text promotions to customers based on this info!
Request Feedback
What better way to find out how your customer service is doing than to ask your customers directly? With SMS marketing, you can send out short text surveys to collect feedback from past and current customers. Don’t send these out too often, as they may become an annoyance, but consider sending them after orders, support calls, or specific purchases. You can include questions or make it as simple as a thumbs up or thumbs down.
If you’re looking to collect reviews, you can even set up a workflow asking customers who gave positive feedback to post about their experience online.
Start Sending Messages with SlickText
Ready to improve your customer service experience with SMS? Get in touch with our team to learn more, and kick off your free trial today.
The Importance of Human Support
While automation and AI have their place in customer service, the human touch remains irreplaceable. For complex issues, 70% of customers prefer to speak with a human customer service agent. This preference stems from the empathy and understanding that human agents provide, which 60% of customers feel is lacking in automated systems.
Human support doesn’t just resolve issues; it enhances the overall customer experience. In fact, 80% of customers report a positive experience when speaking with a human customer service agent. This positive interaction can lead to increased customer retention, with 75% of customers more likely to continue doing business with a company that offers human customer service.
Lastly, human support fosters customer loyalty. About 60% of customers are more likely to recommend a company that provides human customer service. In a world where customer loyalty is hard to come by, investing in human support can set your business apart and build lasting relationships with your customers.
Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Understanding your customer experience is crucial, and measuring customer satisfaction is key. 80% of companies use customer satisfaction metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) to gauge their success.
Companies that measure customer satisfaction often see tangible benefits, with 75% of companies reducing customer church and 60% of companies reporting an increase in profit. By prioritizing customer satisfaction metrics, businesses can enhance their customer experience, retain more customers, and drive growth.
