Your competition is stiff–your clients have many available tech options that provide quality service. What ultimately sets you apart from your rivals may come down to providing a superior customer experience. The most efficient and scalable way to pamper and impress patrons begins with segmenting them according to their stage in the customer life cycle.

Customer goals change over time, but there is often predictability to their needs based on where they fall within the cycle. Group similar customers together and connect with many all at once using your robust customer success management software. These interactions can provide a personalized feel with optimized efficiency that will have your customer base growing through glowing reviews, word-of-mouth advertising and repeat customers.

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Customers vs. users

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When generating life cycle maps, it’s important to differentiate the customer from the user because the customer isn’t always the end user. For example, a CEO who never comes into contact with your service could be your customer. Other employees in the organization may actually be the users. When you map out the customer’s life cycle, you should view the journey from the customer’s experience, not the user's.

Mapping the customer’s life cycle

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Life cycle stages outline and define typical demands and goals for each step to help you better understand and support your clients. Their success equates to your own as you grow your customer base, increase revenue retention and invest in human assets now to generate monetary returns down the road (renewal revenue, word-of-mouth advertising, brand recognition, etc.).

These stages are customizable. Some companies divide these up into additional steps. You’ll likely make changes as you and your customers evolve and learn more about each other.

Also of note, customers can exit the cycle at any stage. However, just because they bow out doesn’t mean you should permanently count them out. Continue plugging away at your customer success efforts and fine-tuning your targeting, marketing and product development endeavors so that churned customers see your value and re-enter.

Stage 1: Awareness and research

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At the beginning of the customer life cycle, your potential customer realizes they have a need and starts searching for a solution. Marketing and word-of-mouth recommendations will inform them of your solution. They will research and evaluate you against other SaaS providers.

Work with your marketing team to disseminate free educational content geared towards the solutions you offer and success stories you and your current clients can boast about. Consider social media posts, blogs, vlogs and demos based on what your target audience uses.

Stage 2: Conversion

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Target your messaging toward sales leads, guiding potential customers to a sign-up link or an account manager who assists them with signing up for your service. Congratulations, you convert a looky-loo into a believer and secure a paying customer.

Stage 3: Experience

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Your business is based on subscription services. To keep members renewing their subscriptions, you must ensure that your customer’s reality meets or exceeds their expectations. A lackluster experience can quickly lead to customer churn.

Proactive customer success measures are necessary for successful onboarding and adoption so that your customers achieve solutions to their problems. As you give them a pampered experience, you’ll be collecting feedback in many ways to learn how you can further assist them and improve your offerings and processes.

Stage 4: Support and engagement

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Your clients need continued support in the form of educational material, resources, FAQs and access to assistance. They need regular engagement opportunities and outreach to prevent frustrations, even if you see they are using their software on a daily basis. Check your customer’s health scores and support tickets to provide the right touch on time.

Stage 5: Loyalty

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Customers nearing renewal should receive campaign material, such as reminders to renew and highlights of their successes (goals achieved, growth, ROI). If they continue or expand their services with you, they’ll re-enter the cycle at stages three or four.

Support for SaaS customer success

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Loyal supporters renew their services with you time and again while also branching out into expanded offerings. With any luck, you’ll turn a portion of your customers into staunch supporters and brand ambassadors who advocate for you via word-of-mouth and social media channels, touting the fantastic SaaS company that you are.

Just as your customers need support to achieve their goals, so do you. Invest in good quality customer success software to make building out your customer journey and following up with your clients to support their success easier.

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