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by Sukhev Singh
Image source: Unsplash
For a business to beat their competitors, their understanding of the customer lifecycle journey shouldn’t lack in any manner. To analyze various latest buying trends, brands gather tons of data, such as customer behaviour, income levels, changes in their requirements, what services their competitive brands are offering they lack. All this data allows businesses to carefully communicate with their customers and connect with them much better by providing them personalized services.
For brands to survive longer, it is much easier and a bit cheaper to maintain an already existing customer base instead of attracting new customers. Every customer wants ease of buying, and brands can ensure this by getting to know their customers closely, for instance, how satisfied they are with their product/service.
Following are some of the practices that businesses can carry out for successful lifecycle management:
For a brand to engage with its customers effectively and through various traffic sources is one of the most critical factors of a customer lifecycle. Deploying multichannel customer support equipped with chat, call, email & social media touchpoints- makes them stay a few steps ahead of their competition.
With digital transformation, it has become easier for brands to connect with customers personally. If a brand has many valuable and active traffic sources to communicate with its customers quickly, it will survive longer.
More businesses realize that customers want immediate resolution of their essential needs without talking to the customer care executive. As a result, pre-populated customer self-service tools are becoming more popular, menu-driven, and FAQs that offer an instant resolution of their simple queries for this very purpose.
If customers can solve their problems instantly and save on time and energy, it is a big plus point for the brand, which will benefit it in the longer run.
Omnichannel customer support enables businesses to communicate with customers across all touchpoints seamlessly without customers having to repeat their queries whenever they call. Thus, it is different from multichannel customer support, where different touchpoints work in separate silos.
Whereas omnichannel customer support, all the customer queries are stored in a central location and shared through all the communication touchpoints seamlessly. Hence brands can provide a customized solution to the customers at the right time and to their satisfaction.
Sometimes, customers are not eligible for replacements or repairs with some online purchases if any issues arise with the product/service quality. As a solution for such mishappenings and to provide immediate relief to the customers, the particular brand can inform the customers that they are providing replacement or repair warranties.
If a brand provides such relief to their customers when there’s a product failure, it will only make the customers develop a sense of trust in the brand thus, improving the customer relationship lifecycle.
If a brand wants to have a positive customer lifecycle management, they need to identify customers who are not satisfied with the brand and highly satisfied with their brand. It can be achieved by using the Net promoter score (NPS). It measures a customer’s satisfaction and loyalty towards the brand and its services on a scale of 0-10. If the score is high, then it is better for the brand.
After identifying such customers, the brand can then figure out their areas of improvement, where they lack in their services, what areas need to be modified, all done with the feedback generated.
Consumers are constantly looking for ways to save money and prefer to buy from brands that provide exclusive discounts. Offering discounts on products or services is one way for companies to attract more customers. Such offers are helpful to clients and highly beneficial to the brand, too, in terms of increased traffic, can enhance the brand’s reputation, increase customer loyalty, etc.
Following are some of the practices that businesses should avoid performing for successful lifecycle management:
Brands need to realize that they need to have more than one traffic source to survive in the longer run. Depending on a single traffic source is not enough; instead, the brands need more traffic sources to provide services to the customers and maintain communication with them simultaneously.
To generate more traffic, a brand needs to have more than just one active traffic source. For instance, advertising their brand’s products through various social media platforms, i.e., digitally.
Another option is using the traditional method through newspapers or magazines, and then there’s also the option of direct marketing.
Once a consumer becomes interested in a brand and its products and services, it is the company’s job to demonstrate why they deserve their attention. Many companies overlook the importance of over-delivering to their consumers, allowing their competitors to take advantage of the situation.
Brands must understand that providing their consumers with various exclusive deals, discounts, and other advantages will pay off in the long term.
Customers are occasionally informed about discounts or memberships by businesses via phone calls, emails, or social media. As a result, the likelihood of such customers switching to another brand increases. It occurs when brands connect with their customers too much and fail to recognize their requirements.
Customers will quickly become annoyed if they are not interested in a specific offer or promotion and slowly shift to another brand.
Customers have their obligations and other prior activities, which brands must respect and recognize. They must strike at the correct balance and reach their clients at the right moment, thus not affecting the customer relationship cycle.
Procrastination is a harmful habit that can affect a variety of enterprises. When a brand procrastinates, they destroy themselves, affecting their reputation in the end. Procrastination harms a company’s reputation as well as its customer connections.
For example, failing to answer a customer’s concern promptly, disappointing to fulfill an order on time, and making excuses for all errors. All of this eventually wreaks havoc on the brand’s connection with its customers.
Procrastination stifles a company’s efforts, and the only way to combat it is to prevent it. To gain customer’s trust, a business must first realize they are stalling, then coordinate themselves and discover a strategy or means to overcome it.
Many businesses make the mistake of not cultivating their current leads. They neglect their present consumers to attract more new customers. Customers ultimately move up to another brand and, as a result, impact the customer relationship cycle.
To avoid this, instead of focusing on recruiting new consumers, businesses may provide multiple offers, tailored services, memberships, and other benefits to their existing clients.
Many customers use social media websites to voice their dissatisfaction with a brand’s product or service in today’s digital age. If the brand decides to schedule a call or send an email to them in response to the customer’s grievances, the customer will eventually seek the solution elsewhere. When such customers search for a solution to their problems elsewhere, the chances are that they will turn to the brand’s competitors.
Brands must recognize that they should have various touchpoints and platforms to interact with their customers. Therefore they must be active and present in all of them.
Any organization wants to thrive and stay competitive. They must therefore manage the customer lifecycle by proactively reaching out to them and offer them customized solutions. Solutions that are in tune with the needs and resonates with the aspirations of the customer.
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