What is the customer lifecycle ?
The customer lifecycle represents the relationship between customers and a company as a long journey, with each contact by both parties triggering new interactions or purchases. The sales cycle consists of several stages of the customer journey, from the initial contact to the end of the business relationship.
If a company understands consumer needs and behavior at different stages of the customer lifecycle, it can design more effective marketing and sales activities . This allows your sales team to develop a targeted and personalized marketing campaign to offer customers exactly what they want at each stage. This leads to higher customer retention , satisfaction, and loyalty.
The 5 typical phases of the customer life cycle
At each stage of the customer lifecycle, customers have overseas chinese in canada data different problems and desires and therefore behave differently than in the previous or subsequent stage.
The customer lifecycle is often divided into five phases.
Phase 1: Recruitment phase
In the first stage of the customer journey, potential customers gain initial knowledge about your company and products, but also about competitors and their offerings.
Your task at this acquisition stage is to convince potential customers that your offer is the best option. This is achieved by highlighting the advantages of your product compared to the competition, using high-quality product images and descriptions, as well as reliable reviews. Typical marketing strategies at this stage of the customer lifecycle are search engine optimization or social media ads or Google Ads.
If your company is more specialized in customer acquisition through direct marketing actions (outbound marketing), you will be the one who will contact the new potential client for the first time . To do this, you can use various cold calling sales strategies, such as telephone prospecting and cold mailing .
Phase 2: Welcome Phase
At this stage of the process, once potential customers have become repeat customers at your brick-and-mortar store or e-commerce site, you need to show them that they made the right choice. Offer them an exceptional customer experience with a seamless checkout and excellent customer service .
Then, let your new customer give you feedback. If customers have a positive memory of the purchase, they are more likely to make subsequent purchases.
Phase 3: Customer loyalty
Existing customers are very valuable to businesses. Therefore, your goal at this crucial stage of the customer lifecycle is to maintain the business relationship with marketing messages for as long as possible. Active customer service, along with cross-selling and upselling strategies can help.
At this stage of customer retention, bonus programs, contests, and special conditions are also recommended. Conduct regular surveys to measure customer satisfaction and respond to criticism with improvements.
