20 Most Popular Emojis Customers Use In Support Interactions

There’s one 2023 CX megatrend – besides customer service automation, quality reviews, and omnichannel support –  that hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Are you using customer support emojis?

We’re sorry, emojis, for not saying “thank you” often enough. You’ve made a huge difference in online support interactions by lighting up our convos with real emotions.

When I learned about this injustice, I took it upon myself to bring the facts to light. I looked into anonymized data about emoji use in our customers’ global support interactions to understand how people use emojis to express their emotions when talking to support agents. 

Here are the top 20 emojis customer support emojis (used by customers)

#1 

You get a star, you get a star, everyone gets a star! This emoji is the most popular way of expressing one’s gratitude towards a helpful agent. 

#2 

A sincere smile of a satisfied customer. What else could one hope for? Well done, everybody, it’s the second most popular emoji among customers.

#3 

We love you, too. And, yet, we hope that you will never have to reach out to our customer service again. Because we love you. 

#4 

Sometimes you can’t get the feature you were requesting, and sometimes it takes time to fix an issue. We’re sorry that the sobbing emoji ranks so high. We’re doing our best. 

#5 

The thumbs-up emoji deserves the Word Saver of the Year Award. “Thanks for fixing the issue”, “Sure, I’ll send you more details after I’ve finished grooming my cat”, “I’ll be happy to hop on a screen-sharing call with you and my grandma” – all of these words are unnecessary when you have a ?.

#6 

Thanks for bringing light into the most complex (but also the most tedious) cases, the emoji of hope and gratitude.

#7 

You’re totally screwed or absolutely nailing it. Let’s hope that the tears of joy come from agents’ witty responses and exceptional taste in GIFs.  

#8 

About half of the population uses this slightly smiling emoji to express positive emotions like content and happiness (some even laughing?!), while the other half sense a passive-aggressive undertone in this face. We’re glad it’s number 8 on the list ?

#9 

Yay, you’ve made the customer smile (with teeth)! That’s genuinely a good sign. 

#10 

We totally get you! Agents that deliver excellent customer care are absolutely lovable. This emoji deserves a place in the top 10 for sure. 

#11 

This is another variation of the emotions that make people smile, usually conveying sincere content and happiness. If you’re looking for nuanced meanings, note that it can hint that the person is keeping a friendly but formal distance in the interaction.

#12 

Surprised and happy, you might have even earned a real-life chuckle behind the screen. We need more of these emotions in customer service!

#13 

This disappointed emoji is often the most difficult one to face. The customer is not angry (so you can’t argue), they’re not sad (no use of condoling) – they are disappointed. And that’s hard to fix. Sorry.

#14 

We’re happy to find another face full of positive emotions from the 14th place. You’re definitely doing something right when that’s how you make your customers feel. Congratulations!

#14 

Somebody messed something up, but it’s cool. If that’s how customers react to issues caused on your end, your agents deserve a medal. 

#15 

Oh, please, no. That’s not the emoji that we want to see in our customer convos. That’s not how we want to make customers feel. We’re sorry. There must be something we can do to make it up for you.

#16 

Got customers winking at you? Look for hidden meanings in the conversation. While this emoji often refers to a joke or something positive, it may (or may not) also carry condescending emotions. 

#17 

The face of a happily laughing customer always brightens a support rep’s day. Good job, you’re doing great!

#18 

Wait, what? An evergreen tree has made it to the top 18 most popular emojis used by customers in support interactions. 

Is it to thank for fresh and relevant answers? Or the serenity the agent’s solution brought? Perhaps a Christmas tree? Please help us understand the meaning of this emoji in the context of support interactions in this thread in our online CX community Quality Tribe. 

#19 

Hello, dear friend! Bye-bye! The friendly hand wave probably needs no further explanation and gets comfortable at position number 19 on the list. 

#20

™️

The trademark symbol (somewhat surprisingly) ends the top 20 most used emojis list and leaves us wondering if its popularity comes from legal concerns regarding brands in support interactions, or whether there’s a whole new genre of clever use of the ™️ emoji we’ve been missing out on. If that’s the case, let us know. 

Which emojis do your customers use the most in support interactions?

Join the emoji conversation in our online CX community Quality Tribe. We dare you to only speak in emojis.

Now, who’s curious to find out about the most popular customer support emojis used by agents? Perhaps peek into emojis used by some of the world’s leading support teams? Stay tuned for Vol 2 of the groundbreaking emoji science papers by Klaus.