A long list of ways you can improve your customer experience and digital marketing

I like making lists (and they sometimes turn into cards) to help people explore lots of different ways of solving a problem or thinking about a topic.

Today, I wanted to share a list of my consumer expectations around digital marketing and customer service.  Use as a checklist to evaluate your own experiences, those offered by your company or if you are a digital marketing/design agency whether your work really helps your clients delight their customers.

1. Tell better stories – really, this is number one.
2. Get to know me, recognise me (and my needs)
3. Don’t interrupt me
4. Help me choose
5. Deal with my worries
6. Reward my loyalty
7. Be fair and transparent about your use of data
8. Answer my questions
9. Smooth my experience over multiple channels (and touchpoints and people)
10. Talk to me and other customers
11. Understand that people like me buy for different reasons
12. Don’t expect me to give you feedback all the time
13. Don’t make me think
14. Don’t stalk me
15. Don’t use no-reply email addresses
16. Let your team help me directly (rather than passing me around)
17. Have a higher purpose than sales
18. Give me stories and tools to tell friends about you (if and when i want to)
19. Be (mentally) available to me
20. Help me make you a habit (if that makes sense)
21. Help me switch from my current brand
22. Delight and amuse me, make me smile
23. Support me in my hopes and dreams  – stand for something
24. Show you are listening to me and other customers
25. Respond to my comments and reviews
26. Be proactive
27. Let me experience your product or service
28. Thank me
29. Let me see behind the scenes
30. Recognise the seasons and holidays (even if I live in another country)
31. Make yourself easy to find online (for needs)
32. Surprise me
33. Simplify the way we interact – remove barriers (intrusive questions)
34. Don’t lock me in
35. Don’t assume I’m in the US
36. Help if I speak another language
37. Say sorry
38. Know when a human needs to step in
39. Be a customer of your own experience
40. Show me you recognise what your competitors are doing
41. Make me feel exclusive or special
42. Don’t assume everyone whats to be fast – give me time to think
43. Be on all appropriate channels
44. Be memorable
45. Learn from what works and does not work
46. Be consistent
47. Be distinctive from your competitors
48. Show me you understand digital
49. Show me your people so I can see who I am dealing with
50. Don’t make me feel like you are manipulating me.

Let me know if you can think of any more.