A customer relationship lifecycle is made up of all the touch points between you and your customers. In most companies, a customer relationship lifecycle consists of four to nine stages, starting with awareness building and lead generation and ending with support, long-term care and advocacy. Every company’s customer relationship lifecycle is different, so to keep our discussion focused on the solution at hand, Figure 2.3 provides a pretty typical customer relationship lifecycle, consisting of eight stages. The white titles in the figures show the customer’s intent at every stage and the black titles are the business’s intent at the same stage of the customer relationship lifecycle. Let see each stage in detail:
Figure 2.3: A typical Customer Relationship Cycle
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Awareness – Branding
The customer relationship lifecycle starts when a prospect realizes that she needs or wants a service. Companies that are able to communicate the ability to potentially address this need create awareness for the prospect. A company usually achieves this through brand-building activities like PR, advertisements, etc. -
Investigation – Lead Generation and Qualification
After realizing her needs and becoming aware of a company, a prospect seeks more information about the company, its products and services. Prospects may also look for alternative solutions or the best solution. A company can provide passive information e.g., website, marketing collateral, videos and publications or it can provide active information that may help prospects make up their minds to consider the company’s offerings, hence generating leads. -
Consideration – Bidding and Proposal
As the prospect weighs the available knowledge of various solutions against her criteria and hierarchy of needs, she develops a concept of the ideal solution for her needs. In consultative selling, the goal of the salesperson is to either understand the prospect’s concept of the ideal solution, or help the prospect create one and match the business’s offerings with that concept. -
Purchase – Negotiation and Close
A prospect makes the final selection based on how well an organization’s offerings meet the hierarchy of her needs and align with her concept of the ideal solution. The organization, on the other hand, customizes its solution and negotiates the price and other components with the prospect to close the deal. -
Use – Fulfillment
At this stage the prospect becomes a customer. In sales of simple commodity products, fulfillment may merely consist of shipment and delivery of the product to the customer. However, in more complex sales, fulfillment could be a major component including customization, configuration, and installation, etc. -
Satisfaction – Customer Service
The customer goes through the learning curve of using the product and sees firsthand what the brand is about. If the solution meets or exceeds expectations, she becomes a satisfied customer. This satisfaction could be the combined result of excellent products and equally exceptional support, training, and customer care. -
Loyalty – Retention and Up- and Cross-Sales
A highly satisfied customer shows her loyalty to the brand by buying the same, similar, or additional offerings from the same brand. A business offers special loyalty programs to increase customer satisfaction levels. Using customer satisfaction as the driver, a business maintains the relationship with existing clients and fulfills their unmet needs through additional offerings. -
Advocacy – Word of Mouth and Referral
Not many customers reach this stage. However, those who do become completely vested in a brand, paying premium prices and recommending it to friends and foes alike. Hence, they contribute significantly towards a business’s growth.
We understand that a customer relationship lifecycle is composed of multiple stages and that each stage can have multiple touch points. Now, let’s see how multiple channels can be integrated to provide the best customer experience at each stage, hence achieving business objectives.