What makes great customer service? Forbes speaks directly with three CEOS: Steve Newton of Mission BBQ, Pat Egan of See's Candies, and Rob Pace of HundredX.
Updated Oct 14, 2025, 10:28am EDTForbes’ newest Best Customer Service list identifies the leaders in providing consumers the best experience and sense of loyalty. But what does that actually look like? To dig deeper, you talk to people in the trenches.
Forbes Assistant Managing Editor Alan Schwarz sat down with experts from three customer service vantage points. Representing retail was Pat Egan, President and CEO of See’s Candies. Steve Newton, the co-founder of Mission BBQ, provided perspective from the restaurant sector. And to discuss the overall landscape of customer service throughout all industries was Rob Pace, the CEO of HundredX—the consumer-research company that conducted the survey and analysis on which the Best Customer Service list was based. They discussed what customer service means, how to handle negative feedback and the increasing use of artificial intelligence to relate to consumers. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.Pat Egan :Exceeding the expectations of our customers.What does that actually look like? Not the concept of customer service, but something people can see.It looks like the sample we give our customers when they walk in the shop. And a smile. So I went in a shop this morning to talk to our associates. They're all so engaged, but when they're talking about a customer and they're smiling, I know we've done it right. Whatever you need, we're here. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. If I call the contact center and get to somebody, I know the company cares. If I can't, I know they don't care.Rob, HundredX collects and analyzes customer service data and actual comments on companies across dozens of consumer sectors. What does good customer service look like for a financial services company, a car rental, a hospital chain?We get about 4 million pieces of feedback from consumers across 90 industries, so it's two-thirds of the U.S. economy. Of the top 25 brands on the Best Customer Service list this year, it’s really interesting that 15 different industries are represented. We can learn a lot. There’s Banking, Grocery, Auto Repair, Health, a cable company, a casino, airlines. The common theme is culture. Customer service comes back to: are you obsessed with the customer's outcome? It’s usually an ‘and’—a great product and great service. It's very rare you're going to find people who have great customer service and a lousy product.Steve, Mission BBQ is a restaurant, sure, also has its unique mindset to serve military members, first responders and so on. How does that affect the type or impression of customer service people receive in your restaurants?When we started we had a culture that had a purpose, that had a mission. We're not a non-profit organization but we believe that the human spirit feels more connected when they're working for something bigger than themselves. Our teammates get an opportunity to serve our people and serve our community. And of course, some teammates have served our country. It’s the goodness of the camaraderie of a work family working together.Pat, tell us a situation that you came across where something regarding customer service at See’s went wrong.I'll tell you one from just this morning. We have well over 200 SKUs, one of which is a pecan bud. It’s a particular nut, and a particular chocolate. Well, we had a maintenance outage for two weeks. There's only one piece of equipment that can make it. So today, literally, we don’t have the pecan buds. “Where are my pecan buds? I've been a customer for 35 years. Why don’t you have the product that I'm looking for?” We never want that. But if we're dissatisfying them, there has to be a story, there has to be a reason, there has to be something they can walk away with to say, ‘We’ve heard you. We'll take care of you.’”Rob, you get so much data and collect so many comments from different types of customers who had bad experiences and vent. You deliver all that to your clients. What’s their reaction to the negative, and even nasty?Some feel like it's a gift, and some people feel like it’s something that needs to be squashed. Or refuted. The ones who feel like it's a gift, they evolve. They realize that they're in a relative game, where they're thinking about share of stomach, or a share of candy, not just their own deal. It really is a mindset of: Is this a gift, or is this a threat?We have multiple metrics. One, we look at traffic count—are more customers coming in? Now, that might be a dynamic of food and service, or even to some degree marketing. We also have reviews from our customers, which we compile over the multiple social media channels. We also have a number of complaints per restaurant per year. We have 155 restaurants, and I get every single complaint.When I was younger, I got defensive on those things: ‘You don't understand, we're working so hard.’ But if it becomes chronic, well, there's an action plan we will all come up with, together.What you all have been discussing derives from empathy for the humanity of your customer. Quote-unquote “Artificial Intelligence” has been used for years for call centers and website chats, but it’s quite obvious that AI is going to transform many customer-service interactions, some of which are surely going to trade customer experience for cost-cutting efficiency. How do you see AI developing in this context?We want technology to work for us. And we never want to get in the way of the customer experience. Getting to a contact center and you can't get ahold of a person is just the worst. So we do use it to analyze all of our calls. We’re getting that feedback, and it's scoring every call and every interaction with a customer service agent. Did we take care of the customer and resolve the issue, or did we not? Now, do I trust AI all the time? I don't. We go back in and we take an actual listen to make sure it's giving us the right data. The more others want to leverage technology and get away from the customer, the more I want to get closer to them.For us, AI, we're just restaurant guys and gals. We're not going to be the Lewis and Clark when it comes to technology. We aspire to be high touch and not high-tech. We did find some advantages from an ideation perspective of using AI. Sometimes I'll try to put together a memo or a training document. I'll try to put together some type of thought process, and I'll go to AI. ButRob, can you describe how other industries are leveraging AI for customer service?This notion that it's all gonna be AI, etc.—right now AI is about productivity, it's about having smart interns, it's about processes and systems. But it's not ready to be turned loose on the customers yet. Our consumer survey looks across 4,000 brands, and it's very clear that the right solution is an optimization of humans and machines. One of the things we do is the customer has an option at the end of the survey to call out an employee by name. If an employee is recognized by name, the future purchase intent goes up 17%. And the likelihood to recommend, what's called Net Promoter Score, goes up 42%. So this notion of human-employee connection is really, really powerful. It’s not squishy. It's actually fundamental.Created in partnership with the customer-insights company HundredX, Best Customer Service 2026 was created through a wide-ranging online survey conducted from August 2024 through July 2025 that asked 158,000 consumers to rate the customer service they received while buying and using brands and products. Companies were evaluated on four factors: personal interaction, speed, services and resolution. The questions were tailored to different industries—restaurants were rated on speed of service, for example, while retailers were rated on returns—and companies were compared both overall and to their competitors. Companies could be based outside of the United States, but in practice needed a significant presence in the U.S. for respondents to provide enough feedback for consideration. At least 400 reviews were required for eligibility. Respondents freely selected the brands they wanted to review—they were not prompted about any specific company, brand or product. More than 3.8 million ratings were received in the survey overall, with more than 3,500 unique brands reviewed. The top 300 brands made the list.As with all Forbes lists, companies do not pay any fee to participate or be selected. For questions about this list, please contact listdesk forbes.com.
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