You know that feeling when you call a support line and the person on the other end sounds like they're reading a script written by a robot that hates humans? It's the worst. Honestly, most companies think "service" is just a checkbox or a cost center to be minimized. They’re wrong.
Excellent client service examples aren't just about being polite. Politeness is the floor. It’s the bare minimum. True excellence happens when a brand treats a customer like a person with a specific, messy problem, rather than a ticket number in a CRM. I've spent years watching how top-tier organizations handle the "moment of truth"—that specific second when a customer is frustrated or confused—and the difference between the greats and the also-rans is massive.
The Ritz-Carlton and the "Stuffed Giraffe" legend
Let's talk about Joshie. Joshie was a stuffed giraffe left behind at a Ritz-Carlton in Florida by a young boy named Chris Hurn’s son. Now, most hotels would just put the giraffe in a "Lost and Found" box and wait for a call. Maybe they’d mail it back in a padded envelope if the guest paid for shipping.
But the Ritz-Carlton staff at Amelia Island did something weirdly brilliant. They didn't just find Joshie; they gave him an extra vacation. They took photos of the giraffe lounging by the pool, getting a massage at the spa, and even driving a golf cart. When they sent Joshie back, they included an album of his "extended stay."
Why does this matter? Because they empowered a loss-prevention employee to spend time and a tiny bit of company resource on a whim. They didn't ask for permission from a VP of Marketing. They just did it. That’s a core tenet of their "Gold Standards." Every employee is technically authorized to spend up to $2,000 per guest, per incident, to resolve a problem or create a "wow" moment. They rarely spend that much, of course. It’s the permission that counts.
Zappos and the record-breaking phone call
Most call centers track "Average Handle Time" (AHT). They want you off the phone in three minutes or less. Zappos does the opposite. Back in 2017, a Zappos customer service rep stayed on a single call for 10 hours and 43 minutes.
Think about that.
That is nearly an entire waking day spent talking to one person. Was it efficient? Absolutely not. Was it profitable for that specific transaction? No way. But it became a legendary piece of company lore. It proved to every other employee—and every customer—that the goal isn't to close tickets; it's to build relationships. They aren't selling shoes; they’re selling the feeling of being heard.
Why "Proactive" is better than "Reactive"
Usually, we think of service as a response. Something breaks, we fix it. But the best excellent client service examples are actually proactive.
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Take Chewy, the pet supply company. They are famous for sending hand-painted portraits of customers' pets. They don't do this because a customer complained. They do it because they track data. If you mention your dog’s birthday to a rep, or if you’ve been a loyal subscriber for three years, you might just get an oil painting in the mail.
Even more impactful is how they handle grief. If a customer calls to cancel a recurring food shipment because their pet passed away, Chewy doesn't just stop the billing. They often send flowers. They tell the customer to donate the leftover food to a local shelter instead of returning it. That’s empathy scaled through a corporate structure. It's incredibly hard to pull off without sounding fake, yet they do it.
The Nordstrom Tire Story (Even if it’s a bit of a myth)
There is a famous story in retail circles about a customer who returned a set of tires to a Nordstrom. The catch? Nordstrom has never sold tires.
The legend goes that the clerk took the tires back and gave the man a refund anyway because the building used to be a tire shop before Nordstrom moved in. Now, historians and former executives have debated the literal truth of this for decades. Some say it happened in Alaska; others say it's an urban legend.
But here’s the thing: it doesn't matter if it's 100% true. It’s "true" in the sense that Nordstrom’s culture makes it believable. When your employee handbook is famously a single 5x8-inch card that says "Use good judgment in all situations," you create an environment where the "tire story" can exist.
The technical side: Response times and the "Loom" effect
In the B2B world, excellence looks different. It’s less about stuffed giraffes and more about speed and clarity.
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I’ve seen a shift recently where high-end agencies are ditching long, formal emails for short, personalized videos. Instead of a 500-word explanation of a technical bug, a developer sends a 60-second Loom video showing their screen. "Hey Sarah, I saw the issue on the checkout page, here’s what was causing it, and it’s fixed now. Have a great Tuesday."
It’s personal. It’s fast. It removes the "corporate veil."
Small details that carry huge weight
- Remembering the "Unimportant": A lawyer who remembers that a client’s daughter had a soccer tournament over the weekend.
- Owning the Mess-Up: When Slack goes down, they don't hide. They post humorous, transparent updates on their status page. They apologize like humans, not like a legal department.
- The "Unexpected Gift": My local mechanic once cleaned my dashboard and left a small bag of high-quality coffee on the passenger seat. My car was still old and clunky, but I’ve never gone anywhere else since.
The psychology of the "Service Recovery Paradox"
This is a wild concept in behavioral economics. It basically says that a customer who has a bad experience that is brilliantly resolved will often be more loyal than a customer who never had a problem at all.
Basically, if everything goes right, you're just a utility. But if something goes wrong—a flight is canceled, a steak is overcooked, a software update deletes data—and the company jumps over the moon to fix it, you become a fan.
Southwest Airlines is often cited here. When they have massive technical meltdowns, they don't just send a generic "we’re sorry" email. They’ve been known to send thousands of points or vouchers to people who didn't even complain yet. They recognize the "pain point" before the customer has to point it out.
Where companies fail (The "AI Trap")
We’re seeing a lot of companies hide behind AI chatbots lately. It’s a mistake. While AI can handle "Where is my order?" it cannot handle "My order is for my wedding tomorrow and it’s lost."
When companies use AI to block access to humans, they are destroying their brand equity. The best excellent client service examples in the next few years will be the companies that use AI to give their human reps better info, not the companies that use AI to replace them entirely.
If I have to say "representative" five times into my phone, I'm already halfway to switching to a competitor.
What you should do right now
If you’re running a business or managing a team, you don't need a million-dollar budget to replicate these examples. You need to fix your culture first.
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Start by identifying one "standard" rule that makes your customers' lives harder and kill it. Maybe it’s a 14-day return window. Maybe it’s a rigid "no refunds on digital goods" policy.
Next, give your front-line people a "happiness budget." It doesn't have to be $2,000 like the Ritz. Even $50 a month that they can spend to send a client flowers or a book can change the entire energy of your support team. They stop being "cops" enforcing rules and start being "hosts" providing an experience.
Finally, stop measuring only the "speed" of service. If you only reward your team for how fast they close tickets, they will find ways to get customers off the phone as quickly as possible. That is the opposite of excellence. Measure "Customer Sentiment" or "Net Promoter Score" instead. Quality takes time. Let it.
Excellent service is essentially just the radical act of being a decent human being in a corporate setting. It sounds simple, but as we’ve seen, it’s actually pretty rare.
Next Steps for Implementation:
- Review your "friction points": Audit your customer journey and find the one place where people consistently get annoyed. Fix that first.
- Empower your team: Formally tell your staff that they have the authority to make small, reasonable exceptions to company policy if it means keeping a customer happy.
- Personalize the boring stuff: Look at your automated emails (receipts, shipping notices, etc.) and rewrite them to sound like a person wrote them. Remove the "corporate-speak."
- Listen to the "Front Line": Your support reps know more about your business flaws than your executives do. Meet with them weekly and actually listen to what they're hearing on the phones.