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The customer life cycle: what it is and how to extend it over time
Maria Diaz

Apr 19, 2019
8 min read
The customer life cycle: what it is and how to extend it over time
The business relationship between a person and your company is generated when the prospect makes the first transaction with your business and, at this precise moment, you will be generating a bond that, if you work on it well, could be very promising for your finances and for increasing the customer life cycle much more than you imagine.

To achieve this goal, you must first know and understand how the life cycle of new customers works in a digital ecosystem and then learn the best strategies to keep them loyal to your business.

What is the customer lifecycle?
The customer life cycle is the stages that a customer goes through from minute 0 when they become a customer until they stop being one.

In a more general sense, we can say that the life cycle of every customer begins when they find out about our existence, grows when they become more and more curious about what we do, matures when they trust us and buy, reproduces when they recommend us because they are proud of us, and dies the moment they leave us.

Continue reading and you will see how productive and necessary it is to maintain a well-established database to increase the life cycle.

The customer life cycle: the 4 fundamental pillars
The process that encompasses the customer life cycle is primarily based on 4 phases, which are:

Obtaining.
Conversion.
Maintenance.
Monetization.
Let's look at them in detail.

1.- Obtaining
All people who view our website for the first time are called visitors.

However, our real challenge is to get them to become a recurring user of our portal.

To do this, we must take into account that each user has a different desire; therefore, the best way to get their constant attention is by developing various well-segmented strategies, to position ourselves in the mind of each one of them and then they choose us assiduously.

Through valuable content on our blog or website, we can persuade our visitors to provide us with their data and maintain ongoing contact through channels such as email marketing.

We mention this tool because it offers the highest return on investment and is the most versatile for sending segmented content and successfully building loyalty in our community.

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2.- Conversion
This stage of the visitor-customer transformation process is essentially determined by the interest shown by our user in a particular item in our store.

In this situation, the person provides us with their contact information and automatically becomes a qualified customer prospect for our company.

Additionally, by leaving us your information you are giving us permission to contact you in the future with relevant content.

3.- Maintenance
It is very important to retain our Leads and, above all, our clients.

In this section of the process, we seek to constantly capture the desire of our prospects.

Generating useful content for them is of utmost importance, but we must keep in mind that we should not saturate them with information .

Remember that it's not all about selling; you must first gain the trust of your subscribers and you will do this by always offering valuable content at the right time (tips, articles of interest, training, etc.).

Email marketing tools often provide reports that allow you to know the best days and times to send your emails based on the behavior of your subscribers.

Take advantage of them!

4.- Monetization
We have reached the end of the process.

If we have done things right we will have gained a new client for our business.

This status change is validated when the prospect finally generates their first transaction with us.

But how can we turn a single purchase into a long-term customer life cycle?

Here we will explain how to achieve it!

5 strategies to extend the customer life cycle in your business
Let's see what strategies to extend the customer life cycle we should take into account:

Always stay present in the customer's mind.
Focus more on connecting than on selling.
Develop a loyalty system.
Promote cross-selling.
Listen to customers.
We see them one by one.

1.- Always stay present in the customer's mind
It is important to understand that those people who have purchased one of your products or services and have had a wonderful experience will be more receptive to the communications you generate in the future.

You can use this to your advantage with the subsequent goal of building loyalty with this new customer and generating more transactions with him in the future.

For example, one method that experts often use is by generating discount codes for customers to use on their next purchase.

If you put this technique into practice, it is very possible that when your client needs another product in the future, he or she will think of you first instead of your competition.

In this way, you will create a relationship over time and, if their experience is positive, you will have a customer loyal to your brand.

But if you really want to establish an even more effective link, the best thing you can do is plan a correct email marketing strategy, which allows you to generate campaigns, obtain reports and automate email sequences .

This way, you can build even more loyalty among your new customers with each contact, thus significantly increasing the customer life cycle.

2.- Focus more on connecting than on selling
The offers and promotions we generate are very productive when it comes to obtaining new sales.

However, it is much more profitable to develop strategies to sell to those people who already trust you, than to new prospects.

A very effective method is to personalize your communications for each of your company's buyer segments.

It is very useful to approach them in a selfless way.

For example, you can wish them a happy birthday or simply tell them how essential they are to your organization.

It is common for users to feel like just another consumer when receiving communications from companies.

For this reason, you must differentiate yourself and you will win the market.

Being genuine is a highly valued resource for building customer loyalty .

In a world of abundant offers and competition, connecting in an honest and sincere way is highly appreciated by consumers.

3.- Develop a loyalty system
Loyalty programs aim to reward customers, which will produce in them a feeling of belonging and loyalty towards the company.

For example, you can develop a system of accumulating points for purchases made, so that the more transactions the customer makes, the greater the benefits they will have in the future.

This is very common in airline companies with their famous mileage accrual system.

After several trips, the customer has the possibility of obtaining a free ticket, further strengthening the bond with the company and distancing it from the competition.

However, to implement this type of program, a prior and detailed study is required to show us conclusively that this system will not generate additional expenses, since the prizes and benefits given to the client must be accounted for in our annual balance sheets.

This type of strategy is a very concrete and effective way to increase the customer life cycle and can bring great benefits to your organization.

4- Promote cross-selling
It is about offering the customer a product that is directly related to an item they have previously purchased.

This works as a complementary sales technique .

If a customer has added beach sandals to their shopping cart, it is very likely that they are also interested in a swimsuit.

In this way, we can link products and generate a greater possibility of making sales based on the purchasing behavior of our users.

Remember to give greater visibility to less popular articles.

We often focus on promoting the most competitive products.

This is a big risk because if sales of a specific product drop, our overall profitability will be affected.

For this reason, it is important to show our users all kinds of items and try to sell those that provide us with the highest income per sale.

There is no one way to work with this strategy; it will depend on each audience.

For this reason, it is very important to use platforms that will allow you to find out in detail the interests of your users through metrics, tests and detailed analysis.

As we mentioned, studying your clients' behavior make on the email you send them to trigger emails or other actions automatically can be a key strategy.

This is very useful to see what kind of items your customers are interested in and offer them only products and content that are valuable to them.

5.- Listen to customers
There is nothing more beneficial for increasing the customer life cycle than solving their problems with our brand.

It is extremely important to focus on getting to know our community when selling, because with this we will know what interests or desires they have and, surely, we will be able to offer them exactly what they want.

Understanding their problems, their doubts and paying close attention to their complaints email database lists australia will make them have a high regard for your company.

It is essential to have a fast and efficient customer service to avoid customer dissatisfaction.

This department should not only deal with complaints, it is also very useful to contact your buyers to carry out satisfaction surveys and consult about possible improvements that they consider necessary.

Customer feedback is one of your greatest assets.

This is because they have a detached view of your products or services and their review will be completely oriented towards the experience they have had as users.