Customer Experience Lifecycle

The customer experience lifecycle includes the steps that the customer goes through while developing a relationship with a given brand, starting with the vague need for a product or service and ending with active engagement. From the customer’s point of view, it proceeds step by step but may not be linear:

• Need: The beginning of the cycle, where the customer is in need of your services and has a requirement you can satisfy.
• Awareness: The customer becomes aware of your brand through advertising, word of mouth referrals or other means of awareness.
• Consideration: You’re going to be one among many, with the customer researching your product and that of your competitors in order to decide which one they prefer.
• Selection/Purchase: A decision is made, with the customers selecting your brand as the one to use.
• Experience: The customer learns how to use or consume your product/service, with them undergoing your provided customer experience. If they are confident you’ve met their needs they proceed to the next step.
• Loyalty: The customers continue to use your brand’s products and services, feeling confident in your ability to provide a good experience. This can lead to them purchasing products they haven’t before and broadening their net.
• Advocacy: The customer becomes an extension of your advertising team, recommending your products to their friends and family. They’ve had nothing but exceptional experiences to this point and they want to pass them on.

Extend your clients’ longevity with excellent CX

In order to make your customers move along the customer experience lifecycle and become loyal or even advocate for you, you need to stun them with excellent customer service and make sure that their experience is nothing but positive. After all, if someone has received nothing but good experiences from a particular brand then they will associate that brand with the good feeling that provides and are far more likely to recommend them to others. Not only that, a great experience means that you’re more likely to retain customers and therefore gain an increase in revenue with less of an initial advertisement investment.

Extending or increasing your customers’ interactions with your brand is crucial in keeping them coming back, with many smaller positive interactions often being perceived as better than one larger positive interaction due to the perceived maintaining of the quality of their experiences – a pattern is far more pleasing than a singular interaction which might be a one-off. Encouraging feedback and engagement with your brand from the earliest stages can be crucial in the customers’ emotional development with you and how well they form a bond with your brand.