Customer service is the help a business gives customers at any stage of their buying journey, including before, during, and after a purchase. For example, a service agent may provide additional information about a product or help a customer resolve a problem with an order.
Poor customer service costs businesses both customers and revenue. In a 2025 survey of 2,119 US adults, 70% said bad customer service would cause them to leave a company. The same study found that 75% would consider leaving if they could not reach someone in customer support.
This guide explains what customer service is and how to build a support strategy that keeps customers coming back. It also includes customer service examples that show how these principles work in real interactions.
What is customer service?
Customer service, also called customer care, is the help a business gives people before, during, and after a purchase. It can involve helping customers answer product questions, complete an order, or resolve a delivery or return issue. The goal is to give clear answers and find a fair solution when problems arise.
Good customer service builds trust and encourages repeat business. In Shep Hyken’s 2025 State of Customer Service & CX report, 83% of US customers said great customer service increases their trust in a company when making a purchase.
Customer service vs. customer support
Customers receive service at every stage of the purchase process, like product questions and returns. Customer support handles specific, often technical product issues after the sale.
For example, a service agent may explain a return policy to a customer via chat, but a support specialist can troubleshoot a device that will not connect. At a small business, one employee can perform both roles.
Customer service vs. customer experience
Customer service is one part of the customer experience. For an online store, the ecommerce customer experience is the shopper’s overall impression across the buying journey. Service is the direct help a customer receives from an employee or self-service tool.
A refund conversation is customer service. How the customer feels about the store after that conversation is customer experience. But even the customer getting their refund can still leave a poor impression if the process is slow or confusing.
Why is customer service important?
Customer service is important because it helps a business retain customers, earn repeat purchases, and protect revenue when something goes wrong. A fast, respectful response shows customers that the company stands behind its products. When Hedley & Bennett's first apron straps broke within 24 hours of delivery, founder Ellen Bennett took full responsibility and fixed the defect right away, keeping the chef as a customer.
Customer satisfaction measures how well the service experience meets a customer’s expectations. Poor service gives people a reason to leave, often before the business knows there is a problem. Recent research measures the value of good service and the cost of a bad experience:
- Brand loyalty. Excellent customer service ranked among the four leading drivers of brand loyalty in the SAP Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index 2025. It was cited by 37% of consumers, after high-quality products (59%), a wide product range (41%), and discounts or loyalty incentives (39%).
- Customer loss. PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey found that 29% of consumers stopped buying from a brand because of a poor online or in-person customer experience. Another 52% left after a bad experience with its products or services.
- Revenue loss. After a negative experience, 34% of consumers reduce their spending and 13% stop spending with the company, according to Qualtrics XM Institute. Fewer than one in three tell the company what went wrong.
Qualtrics estimates that poor customer experiences put nearly $3 trillion in global sales at risk. Customer service, therefore, belongs in the operating plan. Service teams protect loyalty by answering questions before a purchase and resolving problems after it.
Customer conversations also reveal confusing policies and recurring product issues. Fixing those problems reduces repeat complaints. Redmond faced a growing volume of questions about products and orders. The natural products company used Shopify’s Storefront MCP to build an AI commerce agent in 10 weeks.
The agent now responds to thousands of customer conversations each month. It answers questions about product discovery, ingredients, and routine orders. Customers receive links to approved information.
Difficult conversations go to a person, leaving Redmond’s customer experience team more time for requests that call for judgment and care.
4 types of customer service
Businesses offer customer service through several channels so shoppers can get the right kind of help for each situation. In-store conversations work well for product guidance, phone calls suit detailed questions, and online tools provide quick answers from almost anywhere.
Omnichannel customer service gives staff access to the same customer and order information across those channels. For example, a shopper starts a return online and finishes it in a store, with the order details already available to the associate.
Four types of customer service are:
1. In-person
In-person customer service takes place face-to-face, usually in a retail store. Associates answer product questions, help shoppers find items, and resolve problems with a purchase.
Shopify store staff can process returns and refunds with Shopify POS. Staff issue full or partial refunds and restock returned items at the store’s assigned location.
2. Phone
Phone service gives customers a live conversation when an issue is complex, urgent, or personal. The agent asks follow-up questions and explains the solution in real time.
Blenders Eyewear, for example, gives customers a direct phone line to call for service. Its Contact page includes a number for shoppers who prefer to speak with the service team.
3. Online
Online customer service takes place through email, social media, live chat, or an AI chatbot. These channels are good for ecommerce customer service because customers already interact with the business online.
Wood Wood Toys used Shopify Inbox to answer questions faster and provide personalized product recommendations. The brand estimated that it solved the shopper’s problem and won the sale in 8 out of 10 chats.
Shopify Inbox instant answers feature displays predefined responses inside the chat window. The default “Track my order” option lets a customer check an order using an order number and email address, for example.
4. Self-serve
Self-service customer care lets shoppers find answers independently. FAQs, how-to articles, order tracking, and videos answer a store’s most common support questions before customers need to contact the team.
Shopify store owners can create FAQ pages in the Shopify admin. After publishing the page, they can add it to the store’s navigation.
Apps such as HelpCenter add FAQ pages, a self-service widget, and order tracking. The app also combines email, live chat, and Messenger into a single help desk.
What makes excellent customer service?
Excellent customer service uses product knowledge, empathy, clear communication, quick responses, and personalization. These customer service skills help agents understand each problem and provide a fair resolution:
- Studying the top customer service issues
- Patience and empathy
- Clear and accurate communication
- Fast response times and follow-up
- Personalized customer service
Studying the top customer service issues
Review customer complaints and return notes to find recurring problems. Use those findings to guide customer service training.
Role-playing a problem gives agents practice before they assist customers on their own. It’s one of several customer service training ideas that prepare the team for real conversations.
For a Bluetooth speaker company, pairing problems often confuse first-time users. The company can prepare a troubleshooting guide that thoroughly takes customers through each step, then ask agents to practice explaining each step clearly and effectively.
Patience and empathy
Patience gives customers time to explain the problem fully. Empathy means taking their frustration seriously. Both skills matter when dealing with angry customers, since a rushed or defensive reply can make the situation worse.
When a customer receives the wrong-sized shirt before a wedding, a refund corrects the transaction. An apology and a discount code also recognize the disruption caused by the mistake.
Clear and accurate communication
Customers need direct answers and realistic expectations. If an item is back-ordered, give the customer an honest delivery date and explain what happens next.
A short library of customer service phrases gives staff approved wording for common situations. Agents can personalize the language so each response still sounds natural.
Staff also need the authority to issue refunds or replacements on the spot when store policy allows it. This avoids unnecessary transfers between departments and shortens the resolution time.
Fast response times and follow-up
Fast customer service is responding promptly and seeing the issue through to resolution. If the solution takes time, tell the customer when the next update will arrive.
Proactive support reaches customers before they have to ask for help. For example, send a notice as soon as a shipment is delayed, including the revised delivery date.
After resolving the issue, follow up to confirm that the solution worked. Customer feedback can also reveal problems with the service process.
Personalized customer service
Personalized customer service uses information the customer has already shared to make assistance more relevant. An agent can refer to order history, remember a preference, or recommend a product suited to the customer’s needs.
A February 2026 Attentive survey asked 1,050 online shoppers across the US, the UK, and Australia about personalization. Some 93% said they were likely to keep shopping with a brand that provided personalized experiences. Another 53% named remembered preferences as a top reason to return.
Shopify Inbox gives agents access to customer profiles with location, time zone, and relevant order details. Agents also see cart activity and send product links or discount codes during the conversation.
Where the early access Inbox agent is available, it provides signed-in Shop customers with product recommendations based on their preferences, sizes, and purchase history.
How AI and automation are changing customer service
Customer service automation uses software to complete repetitive tasks or start an action when set conditions are met. AI extends this by interpreting customer questions, using store information, and generating replies.
Artificial intelligence has already entered everyday commerce. In a Q4 2025 Shopify survey,* 75% of store owners reported using AI tools. Content generation was the leading use case, at 69%, but fewer than a third of AI users applied the technology to customer service.
For a small team, the best tasks to automate are frequent, predictable, and low risk:
- Answer repeat questions. Shopify Inbox instant answers give shoppers prewritten responses about policies and order tracking. Staff take any follow-up messages.
- Assist live conversations. Shopify Inbox gives staff access to customer and product details, plus tools to share product links and discount codes in chat.
- Complete routine internal work. Shopify Flow uses triggers, conditions, and actions to run workflows. A store could tag a high-value return and prompt a staff member to contact the customer.
Not every conversation belongs in an automated queue. Keep a person involved in cases that depend on empathy, an exception, or careful judgment, such as:
- A frustrated customer has received the wrong order twice
- A refund falls outside the store’s published policy
- A question concerns product safety, an allergy, or a regulated claim
Give customers an obvious way to reach a person. Review generated answers before publication, restrict AI to approved store information, and check conversation logs for wrong or incomplete replies. Each automation also needs an owner who updates it when products or policies change.
French cosmetics brand Paul & Joe put this division of labor into action on its Shopify store. AI-powered chat replies raised daily customer interactions from around 30 human responses to more than 100 total. Customers who used chat converted at about 17%, compared with the usual 2%.
The brand also automated cancellation and return processing after staff had been completing 200 to 300 cancellations each month. Former beauty consultants continued to provide personalized service. Across its wider ecommerce program, online sales quadrupled between 2020 and 2023.
How do you measure the impact of customer service?
Businesses use two categories of metrics to measure their customer service results. One set of metrics directly applies to customer-client interactions. A second set of metrics are broader, accounting for both customer service and other areas of company performance.
Metrics directly related to customer service
The National American Customer Satisfaction Index held at 76.9 out of 100 in the fourth quarter of 2025. It hasn’t increased since 2017. ACSI warns that stagnant satisfaction can build “pent-up customer defection.”
Businesses can use these metrics to improve customer service over time:
Use the same calculation rules each reporting period so results stay comparable.
1. Resolution time
Resolution time measures the total time from when a customer reports an issue to when the team resolves it. Track both the average and median so a few unusually long cases do not distort the result.
Customer service software calculates resolution time from ticket creation and closure timestamps. Set a consistent rule for periods when the team is waiting for information from the customer.
2. Response time
Response time measures how long a customer waits for a reply. Track the initial reply and later responses separately, then break the results down by channel.
Customer service platforms collect the data from incoming message and reply timestamps. Ecommerce AI platform Gorgias recorded first response times ranging from 1.6 hours for hardware brands to 8.8 hours for apparel brands among ecommerce businesses at the same $10 million gross merchandise value (GMV) level.
3. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
CSAT records how customers rate the interaction, while a customer effort score measures how easy it was to get the problem resolved. A customer can report a satisfactory result and still say the process took too much effort.
Calculate CSAT by dividing positive ratings by the total number of responses, then multiplying by 100. On a 5-point scale, ratings of 4 and 5 are usually considered positive.
Survicate analyzed 1,259 CSAT surveys conducted in 2025 and found a median satisfaction score of 80%. Retail and wholesale companies recorded a median of 84.2%. Track the survey response rate alongside CSAT because a small sample can yield misleading results.
4. Issue resolution rate
Issue resolution rate is the percentage of reported issues resolved during a set period. Divide resolved issues by the total number received, then multiply by 100. Count reopened tickets as unresolved until the problem is fully addressed.
Pair this metric with resolution time. One measures how many issues the team completes, and the other measures how long completion takes.
First-contact resolution is a stricter version that counts issues solved during the first interaction. SQM Group’s 2026 benchmarking places the call center average at 71%, with retail call centers averaging 77%.
Metrics impacted by customer service
These three metrics offer insights into customer service as part of a more holistic look at company operations:
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is measured by asking customers, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely they are to recommend a business’s service to a friend.
Some NPS questions directly relate to customer service, while others reflect factors such as product quality, price, and delivery times. Like CSAT, NPS relies on robust survey responses to get reliable datasets.
2. Customer churn rate
Customer churn rate, usually expressed as a percentage, measures how many customers stop buying a business’s product or service over a period of time.
Ecommerce churn rate can be used to measure customer retention for subscription-based businesses. Like NPS, churn measures many variables beyond customer service, including pricing and product quality.
3. Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (LTV) is an estimate of the profit a business expects to receive from a customer over the entirety of their future relationship with the business. Marketing costs and product quality also play a role in determining a client’s long-term relationship with a company.
Strong customer success programs can extend that relationship by helping customers get more value from the product through actions like proactive onboarding and monitoring satisfaction.
Customer service FAQ
What is the main role of customer service?
The main role of customer service is to engage with customers, ensuring their questions are answered and their complaints are heard. Good customer service is key to retaining customers and securing new ones, ultimately leading to revenue growth.
What are common challenges in customer service?
Common challenges include situations where a customer service representative lacks the knowledge to fix a problem or has trouble communicating a solution effectively. That can exacerbate a situation in which a customer is already frustrated or irate, and provide them a bad customer experience.
What does a customer service representative do?
A customer service representative helps customers before, during, and after a purchase. They answer product questions and resolve problems with orders or accounts. A rep also processes returns and involves a specialist when an issue needs additional attention.
What is B2B customer service?
Business-to-business (B2B) customer service is the assistance one business provides to another business that buys its products. These relationships often involve larger orders and longer sales cycles. B2B representatives learn how each client operates and help resolve problems that could disrupt its work.
What is customer service management?
Customer service management involves planning and overseeing how a business assists customers. It sets team responsibilities and defines how issues are assigned and resolved. Managers use feedback and performance data to improve service.
