When your customers are on the verge to begin a courteous relationship with your company, you are both embarking on a journey, one in which you deliver the promises you once made to them. In a way, you are already a part of their customer success lifestyle stage.
Let us begin by having a clear idea about what is customer lifecycle. The customer lifecycle refers to the process that starts with people learning about a product, engaging along with it, and finally purchasing it from the company. It centers on a certain number of stages that call for attracting, engaging and delighting the clients in a multitude of ways.
Gone are the days when it was more like a one-time deal with the customers. Now is the time when you want them to stick around with you for a larger period of time. Let us have a sneak peek into the various stages of a customer’s lifecycle.
The First Stage of Awareness
Being the first stage, your customers have started realizing that they need a solution to their concerns. Next, they become aware of your product or service in the market by doing some sort of online research. For that, your online presence in the form of blog posts, tutorials and informative videos should be strongly available online.
To delve deeper into customer success lifestyle stages, you must know that it is the first impression that lasts long. You will have to entice a client right from the beginning so that he ends up purchasing from you. It is also where you have the momentum coming from the sales, and you would not want to lose that interest, nor the excitement.
The Second Stage of Conversion
After your clients have learned about the solution, this is when the second stage of conversion begins. You will have to come up with attractive facets to let them hold on to you and finally purchase. For starters, you can ask them to sign up for free resources like a webinar, or a free e-book, or perhaps a free version of your product. This is that stage where a little marketing and targeted offers will push them closer to seal the deal with you.
You may also choose to offer training modalities in various structures, whatever the form may be, ensure that it is highly accessible to your customers. As that is all the matters at the end of the day. Over and above, ensure that you update the modalities every now and then, the manner the market demands.
The Third Stage of Purchase
It is now time for the most important phase in the Customer success lifecycle stage. This is the point where the sales team has done its job. With this, the customer onboarding work is done, the product is running extant and the new clients have a basic understating of how to use the product, in the least. Now, these users will start to incorporate it into their usual daily workflow and ascertain how much value they can ascertain from them.
Once your users are learning the ins and outs of your product, hopefully, you will be saving them some time and money. This is when they begin to see how benefitting your service to them in the reality is.
Having said that, remember that if a customer of yours stumbles upon any of your features and is not escorted immediately with help. He will not take a backseat from hovering over the other options. So how would you pull them back to you?
You must welcome onboard some educational resources that would rescue you. This will make the path to adoption much easier. With this, you will not only see an enhancement in the adoption rate but also your customer engagement score will exponentially increase.
The Fourth Stage of Activation
The aim of your company is not only to get a customer that makes a purchase. All your efforts should strive to make them an active user, who turns up daily or weekly, in the least.
These days, most of the SaaS companies, sell their products or service on a basis of monthly subscription. It has now become easier than ever to switch, almost instantly without any fuss. And unfortunately, the amount of competition in the market is on the boom.
To combat that, you must ensure that you are prepared with ample resources such as, outreach, educational. And informative resources to prevent the common roadblocks that often lead to customer churn. This is what customer lifecycle management is all about. This illustrates you with a clearer picture of how you can cut down churn almost instantly.
The Fifth Stage of Renewal
When you see the step of renewal that is the endgame of the whole process, not only has your customer made the decision to re-purchase from you. But also they are happy with your product, enough to buy again. And there is a higher chance that they would go around referring this to their friends to family.
Use this opportunity to tap into the enthusiasm of your best clients by soliciting testimonials, case studies, and reviews. Better yet, you could even incentivize referral marketing. Maintain close communication with your customers and get to know if there is any way that stands on their path of getting a renewal. Throughout the process, you must keep them informed on how well-benefitted they are with the help of your loyalty program.
Final Take
You dedicate your attention and time to ensure that your customers are onboarded effectively. In the customer success lifestyle stages, you will see how they are adapting to the product. How they are becoming advocates to their peers as well.
You will soon get to find how renewal takes care of itself, and how they go on referring your service to people around them. The game of word-of-mouth works like magic in this particular field.
Kaustubh Sangam is a Customer Success Analyst with 2 years of experience. Committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving business growth. Proficient in leveraging data analysis to optimize customer success strategies.
Published June 15, 2020, Updated February 21, 2024
