Customer Lifecycle Management Techniques
Customer lifecycle management techniques are all about knowing your customers better. It helps in serving your customer the right way.
Customer lifecycle management techniques also help in classifying your audience by their purchase stages. Thereby, targeting marketing messages more effectively.
Now that we have a grip on the various stages of customer lifecycle management. Let’s look at some of the techniques to increase customer satisfaction and add value to the customers.
Customer Lifecycle Management Techniques
Customer Research and Analytics
Knowing your customers is the starting point for customer lifecycle management. Customer research & analytics provides a 360-degree view (total clarity) of your customer behavior and preferences.
Along with that it also captures customer feedbacks, pain points, satisfaction levels, etc providing you with a complete picture.
For example, let’s assume BMW had to set up a customer lifecycle management system in place. They would have to profile the audience base into various segments based on the vehicle portfolio. Customer research and analytics would help in structuring the customer data accordingly.
It gives insights on customer behavior across audience categories and helps to streamline marketing efforts. It, in turn, enhances customer satisfaction and experience.
Optimizing Loyalty Programs
Achieving loyal customers are the end goal of customer lifecycle management. Loyalty program plays a vital role in customer satisfaction.
Hence, a customer loyalty program must be well crafted to suit the requirements of the diverse customer base. Optimize your loyalty program by revising the points earning and rewards redemption mechanism.
Cater to your wide audience base by launching loyalty programs with tier mechanisms. It will group customers into various tiers based on the purchase value. Thereby, providing targeted marketing communication and boost customer retention.
You can read our blog on “How to build a loyalty program“ to explore this topic more!
Content Marketing
Based on the insights received from customer research, redesign your brand’s website. Include relevant information areas that interest the customers.
Create blogs and resource to boost customer confidence and your authority as a thought-leader in your industry.
Various online tools like SEMRush, Google trends, Quora, etc., provide information on online customer habits. Based on these insights’ brands could work out their content plan to get noticed by the customer when they search for a product/service.
For instance, SEMRush provides insights on most-used keywords and its search volume. Brands must tailor their communication by including popular keywords to get noticed more.
Improving Customer Experience
Customer surveys provide insightful information on buying habits, pain points, satisfaction levels, etc. Listening to the customer’s voice helps in turning around the customer experience of your brand.
Three of the most popular means of determining customer satisfaction and loyalty levels are:
- CSAT- Scores
- Customer Effect Score
- Net Promoter Score
Customer Satisfaction Score
CSAT is a rating scale survey usually asked on a scale of 1-3, 1-5 or 1-7. It determines how satisfied are your customers from your product, service or customer service process. The score is calculated by adding up the sum of all scores and dividing the sum by the number of respondents
Customer Effect Score
It measures the ease of your experience with a product/service. It helps in enhancing the customer experience and build customer loyalty.
Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter score measures customer satisfaction along with loyalty too. It provides you with an aggregate score. You can easily segment your responses into three categories: detractors, passives, and promoters.
NPS Score = %ge of Promoters – %ge of Detractors
You can read more about NPS calculation in our blog – How to measure the effectiveness of a Customer Loyalty Plan
The of the most popular delivery variations for customer feedback survey is
In-App Surveys
It has one of the highest response rates as the audience are already engaged with your brand. Useful tools for in-app customer surveys are Floq and SurveyMonkey
Post-Service Surveys
Ask your customers feedback right after the delivery of your product/service. They are fresh in mind and has a higher chance of responding to the survey.
Long Email Surveys
Email survey is the best medium for obtaining detailed insights on customer happiness. Google Forms is an excellent free tool for this purpose.
Social Media Monitoring
Social media is today the most effective medium between customers and brands to communicate. It has opened the possibilities to interact with your favorite brands directly.
The social interactions with your audience is a result of their positive experience with your brand. Tracking of social behaviors, conversations, engagement rates would provide customer insights.
Social behavior tracking tools like Google Alerts, Mentions, etc. monitor brand name usages in the social space. It helps to instantly resolve customer complaints, appreciate and engage with loyal customers
Customer retention
Customer retention is critical. But many of the companies are not giving due attention in terms of framing a customer retention strategy for their brand.
The key to customer retention is building business relationships by creating value to your customers. In return, it increases customer lifetime value and boosts revenue.
Customer retention paves the way to build a loyal customer base. To boost your customer retention efforts, identify your customer journey and stages of purchase.
Make the shopping experience seamless by reducing the steps in the buying process.
For example, easy checkouts in Department Stores via a contactless card payment system. At the same time add value to the customers by delivering products they require the most at the right time and place.
Follow our blog on customer retention techniques to know more about how to hook your customers to your brand.
Brand Advocacy
Customer advocacy raises the brand image and positioning to new heights. Due to the presence of the human element and factors like trust and relationships, brand value is perceived higher at this stage.
Customer advocates are real assets to your brand. They contribute primarily to the revenue building by spending more as well as bringing in new customers for you.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the most popular means to measure customer advocacy. Brands must constantly provide a positive experience to the customers. It will convert them into brand advocates.
The aim of all the above techniques is nothing but to keep your customers happy always so that they come back to you.