4 Customer Lifecycles, What It Means for Businesses and How to Attract a New Customer

?

Understanding the 4 Types of Customers in the Customer Life Cycle

?

There are four stages of the customer life cycle. These stages are:

1. Prospect

2. Early adopter

3. Mainstream user

4. Lapsed user

In this article, we will be focusing on the early adopter and mainstream user stages of the customer life cycle as these two stages have a lot of overlap with one another and it is easier to understand these two phases by looking at them together.

?

Customer Lifecycle #1 - The Early Adopter

?

In the Customer Lifecycle, we have explored how to identify and reach early adopters. It is now time to look at when it is appropriate to reach these customers.

The Customer Lifecycle begins with the Early Adopter and ends with the Lapsed User. The Early Adoper has a higher usage rate of your product than other customers but they are not as likely to become loyal as they do not have much emotional attachment towards your product.

Early adopters are typically found in industries such as technology and entertainment. They might be more willing to try new things because of their curiosity or because they care about what?s new in terms of innovation and trends. They enjoy trying new things and progressing towards something better, which makes them perfect for being an early user of a new product or service.

?

Customer Lifecycle #2 - The Loyalist

?

In the previous section, we talked about different types of customers and how each customer type progresses through the customer lifecycle. Now, we are going to talk about a specific type of customer - the loyalist.

If you have been involved in any type of marketing or business that relies on repeat customers, then you know that it is important to keep your loyalist happy. These customers are likely to refer your business to their network and they will continue coming back for more long after they have stopped using your product or service.

The loyalty metrics are equally important for this type of customer as well as measuring their satisfaction and retention rates.

?

Customer Lifecycle #3 - The Dabblers and Spenders

?

This is the third installment of our Customer Lifecycle series. In this series we explore the different stages of customers through a customer lifecycle framework.

In this article, we will talk about "The Dabblers and Spenders". These two groups are at opposite ends of the spectrum with regards to how they spend their time on content during each stage of their customer lifecycle.

Dabblers are those who only dabble in content consumption at each stage in their customer lifecycle. They are constantly exploring new content, trying out new products and services, which makes them feel like they're living a rather exciting life.

Spenders are those who spend most of their time consuming content during the earlier stages in their customer lifecycle, but only dabble as they enter into later stages.?

?

Customer Lifecycle #4 - The Complainer

?

For companies to effectively deal with customer complaints, they need to understand the complaint process and know the right person for the job.

The first step is to determine which department handles this type of issue. The best department should be able to identify what went wrong, why it happened, and how it can happen again in the future. After that, they need to make sure that there are no other complaints pending and that all potential causes of issues are addressed.

Once an issue has been dealt with, the company should analyze what went wrong so as not to repeat mistakes in the future. They also need to figure out what they did well in order to keep this complaint from happening again.

?

?