Customer Lifecycle Management

By Niall

Revenue Growth is as much about fixing the ‘leaky bucket’ with our existing customers are it is about new customer acquisition. Bringing new customers onboard without plugging the holes feels no different than trying to push water uphill. To put life back into your company’s revenue growth, it is critical to take a close look at your Customer Lifecycle management and get back on the path to success.

Customer success is a key focus and sources of revenue growth in every organisation. Customer Lifecycle Management is key if you are managing customer support, renewals, and/or upselling. You will be keenly aware of how much impact a Customer Success Strategy can have on helping you “make the number”.

Why Customer Success Is Your Secret Weapon

Why does Customer Success matter to an organisation?

There are three fundamental reasons that it matters. These are:

Protect the base. It’s more important to prevent a “leaky bucket” of lost revenue than to chase new business deals that are more expensive to source. Simply, please the ones you have already, because a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.

Walk on fertile ground. Most companies have more than one product to sell, or more volume to drive. Whether for cross-sell or upsell, identifying those opportunities offer a cheaper path to revenue growth than chasing new business.

Create an Anti-gravity Flywheel. Customer Lifecycle Management exposes the cross-functional team to all the touchpoints to delight the customer. It helps ensure the cross-functional team is aligned to drive value creation and outcomes for customers. It places the customer at the centre of the business and builds organizational empathy for the problems being solved.

As the Customer Success leader, you know that protecting and growing the revenue base through Retention and Upsell delivers the greatest outcome. But best practice CS teams have learned that Customer Lifecycle Management is the discipline that powers it all. By knowing and acting on what matters most to the customer at each stage, we can institutionalize success as a business process and not just an ambition.

How to Harvest Value from Customer Lifecycle

There are three actions that help turn this opportunity into reality:

Size your Customer Lifetime Value

Start with what your team sold, and then consider the additional volume or upselling potential. This is simply the additional products and services (cross-sell) that fit their needs. With proper segmentation, it is easy to identify 3-7 times more revenue potential that drives up the Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV).

2. Build out your coverage model to capture that CLTV

Segmenting which customers are ideal is an important early step, but the rubber meets the road when we get our teams focused on serving specific accounts. Make sure your coverage is focused on the customers with the highest CLTV based on their:

a) Propensity to Buy

b) Potential to Spend.

3. Manage your team KPIs

Your team knows that saying is one thing, and doing is another. But nothing gets done that isn’t measured. To manage customer satisfaction across the lifecycle, be sure to consider your leading Key Performance Indicators, operating cadence, job design and incentives to drive performance.

A clear view of your customers and their lifecycle is vital to developing the right processes to deliver the outcomes they seek with an experience that will differentiate you in the market.

Knowing Your Customer Lifecyle is Strategic

A world class customer experience management strategy can overcome deficiencies in the product, or other aspects of your company.

ProAptivity help organisation with their Customer Lifecycle Management through the implementation of highly customised CRM software solutions. Our CRM software provides the tools needed for effective customer lifecycle management.

If you want to assess if your business is CRM ready, maybe some of our ebooks could help! Alternatively visit Maximizer CRM for more information.

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