How to Craft a Customer Service Mission Statement

What motivates customer service reps to come to work? Is it because they have to, or they won’t get paid? Do they enjoy spending time with their colleagues? Maybe they like helping customers.

One of the biggest incentives for agents to come to work is to work for an organization that they can believe in. We’re all motivated to work towards a shared sense of meaning and feel like we’re making a difference. When service reps are connected to the impact that your company has on the world, they deliver better customer service as a result.

Customer service agents need a shared mission to inspire them to do their best work. 

The way to connect employees to a company’s goals and values is through a customer service mission statement. You make what your company cares about explicit and unite service reps towards a common purpose.

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What is a customer service mission statement?

Mission and vision statements capture what your company is aiming to achieve and its reason for existing in the present tense. It makes explicit what might only be assumed and brings together both the organization and its customers.

A mission statement is like a north star for your customer service employees, and stands alongside your customer service philosophy. It gives you a target to aim for and a standard against which to measure the level of service you provide. It’s meant to be inspirational and serve to guide your service reps when they are helping customers.

Without a mission statement, your team may be only making assumptions about what your business wants from them. 

It’s a distillation of what your company values into a sentence or two. When you have a good mission statement, little things don’t bother you as much as your company knows what’s truly important.

A mission statement describes:

• What your company does.
• How your company does it.
• Why does your company do what it does?

To create a meaningful mission statement, your company has to be striving for something more than profit. Talking about how much money you want to make isn’t very inspiring for either employees or customers.

What is a customer service vision statement?

There’s a big difference between a mission statement and a vision statement. A vision statement is focused on the future and is aspirational. Your company might not be quite there yet but a vision statement gives you a target to aim for.

A vision statement doesn’t exist yet, but is a representation of what your company could be if it continued on its current path. 

Your vision statement describes where your company would like to be five or ten years from now. Once your mission statement has been accomplished, you will move on to your vision statement.

Ask yourself:

• What is the wider impact that we want to make on the world?
• What would the world look like if the business achieved all its goals?

What are the benefits of having a mission statement for customer service?

Inspires your service reps

A powerful mission statement inspires your service reps when they come into work and makes them feel like what they do actually matters. When agents are working towards a shared purpose, they function as a well-oiled team that can achieve more. Reps are personally connected to the company’s values and they are able to incorporate that into their work with customers.

Highly motivated service reps are an asset to your team and they do their best work for customers. 

Helps you hire the right people

When your organization is clear on its purpose this comes across in the hiring process. Quality candidates are attracted to brands who know what their mission is and the unique impression they want to make on the world. With a well-thought-out mission statement, your company can stand out from the competition and hire people who share their common purpose, elevating your customer service team from just good to great.

When you hire the right people for your customer service team, this reduces agent turnover and saves your business money in the long run. 

Delivers better customer service

When your company has a customer service mission statement, your reps are clear on what they are meant to achieve in the course of their work. They know what is expected of them and they are able to deliver service that matches the organization’s mission. Service reps are aware of the standards that you are aiming for and have an external benchmark to measure success against.

Customers are happier as a result and they are keen to do more business with you when they encounter happy, inspired service reps. 

Creates a better connection with your customers

89% of customers stay loyal to brands that share their values. Customers want to do business with companies that believe in the same things they do and they need to know what your business stands for. A customer service mission statement is a good way to connect with your customers and show them what the business values. Shared values help customers feel they are contributing to something larger than themselves.

Your business doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It must stand for something in order to attract values-driven customers. 

How to create customer service mission statements

1. Be concise and easy to understand

Communicate your vision statement with clarity and conciseness, in just a few short sentences or less. You should use plain, everyday language that anyone can understand.

Your mission statement cuts to the very heart of who you are as a company, and naturally it’s a topic you’ll want to treat with reverence. But that doesn’t mean you should use flowery, dense language.

People should read your mission statement and think: “Yeah, I get that!” There should be no ambiguity about what your mission statement actually means. When someone reads your mission statement, you want them to feel inspired and uplifted, not lost and confused.

Your mission statement is a chance to communicate what your customer service team stands for in a few words. 

2. Gather feedback from your employees

Customer service reps can have valuable contributions to make when it comes to developing your mission statement. They are working on the front lines with your customers and likely to have a good grasp of what your company stands for.

Your mission is going to impact how your service reps work every day. They should have a significant influence in how it is created. Hold a meeting with your service reps to discuss what they think is good or bad about your mission statement. Incorporate their ideas into the final iteration of your mission statement.

Your mission statement is a team effort and arises from the collective effort of many minds. 

When employees have had a hand in making your mission statement they will feel more invested in the final product. They are more likely to follow it and spread the word to your customers.

3. Allow your mission statement to expand with your company

Don’t be limited in your thinking when it comes to writing your mission statement. The key here is to think big so that your team has something to aspire to when conducting their daily business. Your mission statement is a point to aim for and should capture the wider context of your business.

Don’t be afraid to stand out. Maybe you don’t think you offer the best customer service currently, but as a result of your mission statement you will raise your standard of service and outperform all your competitors.

Make sure your mission statement is expansive enough to capture everything you want to do. Your company has big goals, and make sure this is reflected in your mission statement.

Your mission statement is a reflection of what your company would be if everyone did their best work. 

4. Share your mission statement

When you’ve created your mission statement, it’s not something you should hide away and never look at again. Make sure everyone knows about it. It’s meant to unite your team and your customers under a common banner and should be easy to find.

Your mission statement may have a variety of different target audiences so you should share it on different platforms. Post it as an image on social media and create a special area on your website. Send it in an email to the rest of your company. Be proud of your mission statement and proclaim it to the world.

Your mission statement should end up being an integral part of your company’s brand. Make sure it gets full visibility. 

Common mistakes to avoid with your customer service mission statement

Making it too vague

If your mission statement is too vague it won’t capture the essence of what your company does. Customers and employees will be unclear about what you’re trying to say. Make sure you drill down into specifics and create a vivid image of your mission. If the audience doesn’t immediately know what your company does by reading your mission statement, you’ve made it too vague.

Making it uninspiring

Remember, your mission statement exists to motivate its audience to go out there and take action. It should inspire your audience to work harder or do business with your company, not read it once and yawn. Use powerful words to convey your message and be descriptive, and make sure your vision statement is different to everything else out there.

Making it too dense

If you use jargon or buzzwords in your mission statement there is no faster way to turn your audience off. You’re not trying to impress anyone with how many words that you know, but rather provide a simple statement that anyone can understand. Make sure to use regular, everyday language that will immediately connect with your audience. If your audience needs a dictionary to understand your vision statement, then it’s too dense.

Customer service mission statement examples

We’ve got some customer service mission statement examples from top companies to inspire you.

Southwest Airlines: The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.

Nordstrom: To give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible.

Zappos: To provide the best customer service possible. Deliver WOW through service.

Hyatt: To provide authentic hospitality by making a difference in the lives of the people we touch every day.

Amazon: To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

Wrapping up

When you have a customer service mission statement, your business is clear on its goals. You have a standard that you can rally around and use as inspiration to provide superior customer service. You’ll be following in the footsteps of some of the world’s most popular companies and you’ll set your business apart from the rest.

Creating a powerful mission statement means getting clear about what your company values and setting pen to paper. 

A mission statement is a way to let the world know what you believe in and what your company stands for. It should be unique and distinct, reflecting your company’s brand and providing a compelling reason to do business with you.