Customer Service Week Ideas: Budgets, Gifts, and Activities

Gladly Team

Read Time

8 minute read

Ready to see what radically personal customer service looks like? Sign up for a free demo with Gladly today.

October 1 – 5 marks Customer Service Week, a time to celebrate the important role that customer support plays in our everyday lives — from getting our morning started right to getting us to work and home on time. In this article, you’ll find a list of ideas for Customer Service Week (and, if you choose to extend, customer service month!) to celebrate with your team. This list includes budget-friendly customer service week celebration ideas, fun activities for your customer service team, and gifts to appreciate your customer support team.

Skip Ahead:

Customer service week ideas for employees

The people who work in customer service are more than just an important part of a consumer’s life. They’re an integral part of how a company functions as well, and they deserve to be celebrated and recognized. Celebrate customer service week because your service agents are often your first line of brand defense, and your last line of sales and marketing.

Celebrate customer service week because your service agents are your last line of sales and marketing

When a customer reaches out, it’s usually for one of two things: either they have a question or they have a problem. Your customer support team are the ones on the front line, helping your customers through their issues, and the experience they give to your customers is one of the key deciding factors influencing whether they’ll purchase from you again and how much they’re willing to pay.

According to our recent customer survey statistics, more than 50% of customers will consider a company’s customer service record when deciding who to purchase from, and 92% will switch to a competitor after 3 (or fewer) poor service experiences. And if that’s not enough of an ROI, 68% of customers said they would pay more for a product or service if the company provides good customer service.

Celebrate customer service week because your customers will feel the impact

Luxury hotel brand Four Seasons is famous for their world-class level of service. And they credit a lot of their success to their Golden Rule: treating their employees with dignity and respect, in a way that inspires them to perform at their best. A truly world-class customer experience requires customer support teams to go above and beyond their standard KPIs — to do something special that sticks in the minds of your customers and keeps them coming back long after the experience is over. And the way to inspire that attitude is to go above and beyond yourselves when it comes to how you treat your agents.

As Isadore Sharp, founder and chairman of Four Seasons Hotels And Resorts explains, “If we were asking [our employees] to perform at this high level, we had to make sure we gave them what they needed. What would these employees need to inspire them to treat customers this way? That’s when we put in place a commitment to the Golden Rule: treating people with the dignity and respect that they’re entitled to, creating a work environment that led everybody to rise to their best self, creating a team spirit that everybody recognized their particular role was crucial in performing this level of service we were talking about.”

A truly world-class customer experience requires customer support teams to go above and beyond their standard KPIs—to go out of their way to do something special that sticks in the minds of your customers, and keeps them coming back long after the experience is over. And the way to inspire that attitude is to go above and beyond yourselves when it comes to how you treat your agents.

Customer Service Week Ideas on a Budget

Below you’ll find a series of recommendations for how you can celebrate customer service week on a budget. These are great ideas for customer service appreciation week if you are on a tight budget and will help your support and call center team feel appreciated and acknowledged.

Decorate Your Contact Center on a Budget

(Budget: $$$$ – $$$$)

Picture of a donut with a candle and sprinkles, with confetti in the background

Like any office, a contact center can be a stark, clinical space to work in. Get the right atmosphere in place to get your team in the celebratory mood with balloons, streamers, and confetti (both paper and cupcake). This is a great way to celebrate customer service week virtually and on a budget. You could even involve different team members to get them active in the celebration!

Kick-Off Breakfast/Snacks

(Budget: $$$$ – $$$$)

Picture of donuts on a pegboard

Kick off Customer Service Week with a crowd favorite: free food. Order in muffins or donuts for an indulgent breakfast or a fun midday snack. This is a budget-friendly option. Or if you’re looking to make your agents feel truly special, hire a chef for the day to make omelets or crepes on-site.

Executive Team Visit

(Budget: Free!)

Group of professionals looking at a laptop

Hold a Mini ‘Town Hall’

Getting your Executive Team to speak to your support staff is a great way to make them feel like a valued part of your organization. It’s also the perfect opportunity to communicate your company’s mission and vision to your support team and drive home the exact role they play in executing that mission. This is a simple way to celebrate Customer Service Week on a budget while also driving a more motivated team.

Pull a Switcheroo

Have your Executive Team work as an agent for a day—or at the very least, help one customer. It’s a fun way to build a level of understanding between your support team and Executives and gives them invaluable insight into what the ‘day in the life’ of an agent looks like and the challenges they face in their role.

Customer Service Week Gift Ideas

Handwritten Thank You Cards

(Budget: $$$$ – $$$$)

Picture of coffee and 'I love you so matcha' sign

Give your support team a keepsake to commemorate Customer Service Week. It could be as simple as a handwritten Thank You card. Thank You cards can go a long way in showing your appreciation for your team and help increase morale. +1,050 points if you can incorporate a fun pun into your messaging.

Box of Chocolates

(Budget: $$$$ – $$$$)

Is there anything sweeter than giving your team a box of chocolates? Probably not. Give your team a rush of energy and some added excitement by gifting each member a box of chocolates just for them.

Gift Cards

(Budget: $$$$ – $$$$)

Maybe choosing snacks or treats is challenging for your team with the rising dietary restrictions such as veganism, plant-based diets, sugar-free, and Keto. When you just can’t find the perfect treats, then go with the no-fail option of gift cards to the local coffee shop.

Custom Boxes

(Budget: $$$$)

Has your team surpassed every goal and milestone this past year? Do you want to do something extra special? Order custom boxes based on each team member’s unique tastes. These days, there are options for everyone including, Bacon Boxes, Beauty Boxes, Fitness Boxes, Fly Fishing Boxes, and more.

Customer Service Week Activities

(Budget: $$$$ – $$$$)

Aerial view of water theme park

Group activities are not only fun, but they’re also a quick, easy way to foster cohesion across your team. Check out our list of fun Customer Activity Week activities!

Scavenger Hunt

Break your team up into groups and organize a Scavenger Hunt on a grand scale. You can even turn it into a low-key training session by incorporating company policies into your clues; just steer clear of making it feel too much like a midterm.

Dress Up Day and Theme Days

Let your customer support team come up with themes for each day of the week. We recommend getting away from standard dress-up days like pirates and choose something that your team all has in common. For example, if your team are huge fans of Quentin Tarantino movies, then have a dress-up day showcasing a different Tarantino flick each day of the week! Bonus: Rent or set up a DIY photo booth so you can always remember your team’s dress-up and theme day.

Theme Park

Treat your team to a day off during Customer Service Week to hit the local theme park. This may seem a little 7th grade, but who doesn’t love a good trip to a theme park?

Movie Theater

Try renting out a movie theater for an activity to do with your team during customer service week. Have the team pick the movie that’s played, and even bring your own movie snacks that you all can enjoy together.

Top Golf

Treat your team to a day at Top Golf for snacks, drinks, and some good old-fashioned driving at a golf range.

Sports Game

Take your team out to a ball game for a can’t-miss Customer Service Week activity. What better way to celebrate your team than by celebrating your favorite sports team?!

Final Thoughts: Customer Service Week Ideas

And the best way to celebrate Customer Service Week? Keep it going. Invest in making your team’s experience better, from the atmosphere they work in to the customer service software they use. These everyday things are what will truly make your staff feel valued, special, and they’ll pass those positive feelings onto your customers as well.

About Gladly

Gladly is a customer service platform for digitally-focused B2C companies who want to maximize the lifetime value of their customers. Unlike the legacy approach to customer service software, which is designed around a ticket or case to enable workflows, Gladly enables radically personal customer service centered around people to sustain customer loyalty and drive more revenue.

The world’s most innovative consumer companies like Godiva, JOANN, and TUMI use Gladly to create lasting customer relationships, not one-off experiences. 

Get started with Gladly >

Share