100 Customer Experience Tips in 105 Characters (Or Less)

I’ve decided to take on a personal challenge: Tweeting (@btemkin) a new customer experience tip for 100 straight days.

After accounting for the overhead in each tweet (like links back to this post), I’m only left with about 105 characters. Hopefully I can keep up the pace and pack insight into that limited space. I’ll be using the hashtag, #CXtip, so you can follow me on twitter (or just keep coming back to this post).

The tips will cover the four customer experience core competencies: Purposeful Leadership (PL), Compelling Brand Values (CBV), Employee Engagement (EE) and Customer Connectedness (CC).

Here are the 100 #CX Tips:

• #CXtip 1: Examine #insights for #customers’ journeys, not for individual, siloed interactions. (CC)
• #CXtip 2: Engaged employees are extremely valuable assets. They’re worth even more of your investment. (EE)
• #CXtip 3: You can’t fake it. Assume that customers & employees will always figure out what’s real & act accordingly. (PL)
• #CXtip 4: Great #brands are built on making, embracing & keeping promises, so be clear about your #customer promises. (CBV)
• #CXtip 5: #CustExp encompasses success, effort, & emotion. They all impact loyalty, but #emotion rules. (CC)
• #CXtip 6: Don’t waste customers’ time asking them questions unless you are prepared to act on what they say. (CC)
• #CXtip 7: #Employees are more #engaged when you ask for their feedback and act upon what they say. (EE)
• #CXtip 8: Build commitment by appealing to #employees’ hearts, shared values & intrinsic motivations. (PL)
• #CXtip 9: Not all customers are the same. Stop treating them as if they are. Think of using #personas. (CC)
• #CXtip 10: What people experience is not what they remember; so take advantage of how people remember things (CC)

• #CXtip 11: Prioritize #CustomerExperience investments on areas that will help keep your #brand promises. (CBV)
• #CXtip 12: Regularly do something to #engage #employees in #CX ~ story sharing, learning, team celebrations (EE)
• #CXtip 13: Activate your promoters (don’t just focus on detractors); they’re likely happy to help. (CC)
• #CXtip 14: Make sure people understand “why” things need to change before talking about the “what” & “how” (PL)
• #CXtip 15: Helping #employees achieve personal goals in turn helps the company achieve its goals. (EE)
• #CXtip 16: Don’t launch #marketing campaigns unless #employees #believe you can keep implicit & explicit #promises. (CBV)
• #CXtip 17: Shift your #VoC focus from multiple-choice to unstructured questions; they’re more actionable. (CC)
• #CXtip 18: Driving #CustomerExperience transformation is more about #culture change than interaction #design. (PL)
• #CXtip 19: People make most decisions based on intuitive, unconscious heuristics. Design for those biases. (CC)
• #CXtip 20: Middle managers are caught between future visions & current operations. Solicit their input & support. (EE)
• #CXtip 21: Branding is about communicating a story, while a #brand represents your fundamental beliefs. (CBV)
• #CXtip 22: Don’t bother customers with questions that you should know the answers to – use the data you have! (CC)
• #CXtip 23: Make sure your hiring and onboarding processes embed your values within new employees. (EE)
• #CXtip 24: Feedback isn’t the only (nor necessarily the best) source of #customer insights. Examine #behaviors. (CC)
• #CXtip 25: Compensation only becomes a problem with employees when their intrinsic needs aren’t being met. (EE)
• #CXtip 26: Every interaction is a chance to build or break your #brand. If “We Care,” then it should show. (CBV)
• #CXtip 27: Endings have a disproportional impact on how experiences are remembered; so #design them. (CC)
• #CXtip 28: Large investments to improve #CustExp often fail unless you #design the little things that matter. (CC)
• #CXtip 29: Want significant #CustomerExperience improvement? Execs must commit to alter how they run the business. (PL)
• #CXtip 30: Purposeful #leaders instill a clear sense of direction; where the org and everyone in it is headed. (PL)
• #CXtip 31: Have front-line #employees attend cross-functional meetings to share what they hear from customers. (EE)
• #CXtip 32: All employees need to understand the customer – including back office and non-customer facing. (EE)
• #CXtip 33: Want to better understand customers? Do less quantitative and more qualitative research. (CC)
• #CXtip 34: Your #brand is determined by how you treat #customers, not by how you tell them they’ll be treated. (CBV)
• #CXtip 35: To know what’s truly important, look at the agendas for the executive team’s staff meetings. (PL)
• #CXtip 36: How many of projects would have been more successful with less communications? Communicate more! (PL)
• #CXtip 37: Embed values into supporting practices like hiring, training, daily routines, and reward programs. (EE)
• #CXtip 38: Customer familiarity breeds alignment, so talk more about customers’ needs & wants, less about yours. (CC)
• #CXtip 39: Want to drive culture change, then you’ll need to explicitly activate middle managers. (EE)
• #CXtip 40: Reinforce desired #CX behaviors with team celebrations and peer-to-peer recognition. (EE)
• #CXtip 41: Help employees understand the organization’s values by being clear and consistent. (PL)
• #CXtip 42: Learn from #WaltDisney: “Do what you do so well that they want to see it again & bring their friends.” (CBV)
• #CXtip 43: If you want #employees to support your vision, then craft & repeat a simple, compelling message. (PL)
• #CXtip 44: When employees feel like they’re contributing to the company’s success, they contribute even more. (EE)
• #CXtip 45: Great #leaders provide a compelling #vision for the future, not a long list of action items. (PL)
• #CXtip 46: Inspire employees to do the right thing, don’t just control them from doing the wrong things. (EE)
• #CXtip 47: Communicate priorities with your actions, not your emails. What are your decisions really telling people? (PL)
• #CXtip 48: Adopt 5 I’s for #engaging #employees: Inspire, Involve, Inform, Instruct, and Incent. (EE)
• #CXtip 49: Your #brand is an asset that is jointly owned between you and your #customers. (CBV)
• #CXtip 50: Make sure every #employee understands his/her role in keeping promises to #customers. (CBV)
• #CXtip 51: #CX success comes from consistently delivering on #brand promises that resonate with #customers. (CBV)
• #CXtip 52: Share stories about how employees across the company (not just frontliners) are keeping brand promises. (EE)
• #CXtip 53: Purposeful #leaders #motivate others to do their best work. (PL)
• #CXtip 54: Your #brand is your identity. Make sure #customers (& #employees) know what you stand for. (CBV)
• #CXtip 55: Every interaction creates a personal reaction. #Design experiences for specific segments or #personas. (CC)
• #CXtip 56: #Brand promises are more than your company’s mission. They’re a commitment to your #customer. (CBV)
• #CXtip 57: If #employees don’t know where they’re heading, then they require turn by turn instructions. (EE)
• #CXtip 58: #Employees can’t be expected to keep #brand promises if they don’t know what they are. (CBV)
• #CXtip 59: Unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers, so #CX success start with #engaged #employees. (EE)
• #CXtip 60: #CMO’s should spend at least as much time communicating the #brand internally as they do externally. (CBV)
• #CXtip 61: Your role as a #leader is to help everyone else make good decisions. (PL)
• #CXtip 62: Build #customer #insights capabilities to fuel a myriad of small decisions, not just a few big ones. (CC)
• #CXtip 63: If you want #culture change, then YOU must change. Model the behaviors that you want to see. (PL)
• #CXtip 64: If you always maximize short-term goals, then you can’t ask employees to build long-term #loyalty. (PL)
• #CXtip 65: Customer #metrics are never THE answer. Use #CX metrics to drive improvement, not to keep score. (CC)
• #CXtip 66: People are instinctively self-centered, even u & me. Use #customer #insight & stories to break biases. (CC)
• #CXtip 67: Your #brand promises should speak to #customers. Try completing this sentence: We promise to… (CBV)
• #CXtip 68: Celebrate #CustomerExperience successes, don’t just focus on the challenges and issue. (EE)
• #CXtip 69: Want to motivate people, show #appreciation for what they’ve been doing. Ask them what they’re proud of. (PL)
• #CXtip 70: Interactions with your company represent only a small portion of a #customer’s overall #journey. (CC)
• #CXtip 71: Engage #employees by having them be a part of solving problems and creating better experiences. (EE)
• #CXtip 72: #Stories are more powerful than charts. Spend less than 25% of your presentation time on #data. (CC)
• #CXtip 73: Great #brands ooze from the inside out; good #marketing reinforces the org’s true raison d’être. (CBV)
• #CXtip 74: #HumanResources organizations should treat #employee #engagement as a core mission. (EE)
• #CXtip 75: Use a #CX ambassadors program to enlist support from #employees across the organization. (EE)
• #CXtip 76: Want to improve #CX? Don’t just listen to #customers…involve #employees in the solution! (EE)
• #CXtip 77: Share & celebrate #employee success stories and use them to inspire desired behaviors in others. (EE)
• #CXtip 78: Support #employees w/ training, coaching, & feedback to help them deliver brand promises to customers. (CBV)
• #CXtip 79: #Employees are more #engaged when they’re #inspired by their company’s mission. (EE)
• #CXtip 80: Learn from this fact: Many more efforts fail from under-communication than from over-communication. (PL)
• #CXtip 81: A #leader’s (clear) #values are critical for aligning the myriad of decisions that their people make. (PL)
• #CXtip 82: #Motivate #employees by enhancing intrinsic rewards of purpose, control, progress, and competence. (EE)
• #CXtip 83: Build a closed-loop #employee #feedback system, the same way you shoud be doing with #customers. (EE)
• #CXtip 84: Hold yourself accountable for keeping #customer #promises. Why aren’t you measuring it?!? (CBV)
• #CXtip 85: Encourage peer-to-peer praise and #recognition to build strong relationships among #employees. (EE)
• #CXtip 86: #CustomerExperience is a reflection of #culture & operating #processes. They’re the source of great #CX. (PL)
• #CXtip 87: #Leaders must #communicate key messages consistently & persistently so they’re heard & understood. (PL)
• #CXtip 88: Focus efforts on the interactions that have the biggest impact on #loyalty, the moments of truth. (CC)
• #CXtip 89: Every group in the company should define how it will help the firm deliver on its #brand promises. (CBV)
• #CXtip 90: #ContactCenters hold a wealth of untapped #insights about #customers; tap into it. (CC)
• #CXtip 91: Fixing issues doesn’t build #loyalty, it just lessens disloyalty. Find & enhance what builds loyalty. (CC)
• #CXtip 92: Employees do what is measured, incented, and celebrated, so don’t blame people, change their environment. (EE)
• #CXtip 93: When designing #surveys, always prioritize improving for the future over comparing with the past. (CC)
• #CXtip 94: #Leaders need to create a #positive and compelling view of the future to motivate behaviors. (PL)
• CXtip 95: Your #brand is an asset that you jointly own with your #customers. Treat them as partners. (CBV)
• #CXtip 96: Get the right #data to people with business context, and they don’t need statistical significance. (CC)
• #CXtip 97: Don’t try to listen everywhere, focus on the places where you’re most prepared to act on what you hear. (CC)
• #CXtip 98: Have #leaders take #customer calls to build customer understanding & #empathy. (PL)
• #CXtip 99: #CustomerExperience #success requires strong #leadership, #brand, #employees & #customer #insights. (PL)
• #CXtip 100: #CustomerExperience #transformation isn’t easy. Stay positive & #celebrate #successes along the way. (PL)

I did it!