The leitmotiv of recent years is clear: companies must improve their Customer Relationship. To do this, and to properly analyze its sales performance, you need to understand and know the life cycle of your customers.
In this article, we will introduce you to the milestones of the customer lifecycle. The goal: to attract new prospects, turn them into customers, and then retain them.
In concrete terms, the customer lifecycle makes it possible to measure the investment that must be made to put the right resources for each prospect or a customer. By visualizing the potential turnover, we anticipate the balance of the client portfolio.
The customer lifecycle in 5 steps
To go from “unknown customer” status to “loyal customer” status, there will be several stages. You must determine and master them to adapt your means of communication. Let’s focus on these stages.
1. Conquest
This is the seduction phase. It is aimed at potential prospects who do not know you yet. This stage of seduction, or acquisition, goes through all the levers of communication (website with a good SEO, purchase of keywords, posts on social networks, emailing campaigns …).
The fact is that almost all of your online visitors are not ready to buy right away. Sad reality. But, let’s go back to the sentence “not right now”. So, there is a big potential to go for it. And that goes through marketing campaigns: think retargeting for example. This step is, therefore, a big part of the job of the marketing department. You must generate emotions to consider that a prospect can become a customer. The objective: that he will remember you, that he wants to concretize. This is the phase of seduction!
2. Conversion
During this conversion or transformation step, the unknown visitor has changed to “lead” status. He has a project and he seems ready to sign. It’s (almost) in your pocket. Almost because otherwise you would have been told that there were only 2 phases in the customer life cycle!
From your point of view, it’s time to bring product-oriented marketing levers. Why is your product better than the competition? Let it know. The goal is clearly to close the sale. And you can also rely on this conversion phase to calculate the ROI of your conquest actions.
3. Growth
That’s it, he’s a customer! This is the perfect opportunity to develop your customer knowledge and learn more about his desires, his needs. There is, of course, a business objective behind this phase: to do up-selling or cross-selling. Use your CRM software to find behavioral data, points of interest and key info about this customer. The idea is to enrich CRM customer files to better exploit them, via emailing campaigns for example…
What about to make him/her speak at an event? This is an opportunity to receive his/her testimonial. Look what we have at our CRM Days (Here with our Efficy CRM Days 2019 – European tour). Your customers are your best ambassadors.
4. Retention
It will be a challenge to not lose a customer who reaches the end of the life cycle. At this stage, set up loyalty actions and conduct satisfaction surveys with some open questions. In short, listen to your customers.
Unfortunately, sometimes a customer wants to leave you. Sad reality, again. But, in a previous article, you were given some tips to turn an unhappy customer into an ambassador. Small reminder here 😉
5. Reconquest
CRM is crucial for this step. It identifies customers who have not bought since X years. In this case, marketing actions must strive to be ultra-personalized to touch, again, the customer’s heart.
As a conclusion, to control each stage of the customer lifecycle, no need for a thousand tools. Only a good CRM software will be useful. So, think about it!
Try Efficy CRM
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Customer Profiles: The Key To Your Company’s Success