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Making the Marriage Last: Customer Lifecycle Management

(This is the first entry of a longer analysis of the Customer Lifecycle.  Follow this link to read the work in entirety)
My 10th wedding anniversary just passed and I spent some time thinking back on the cycle of events and emotions leading up to a decade long relationship. Specifically, how do emotions and intent drive the behaviors and messaging necessary to be successful at each stage. Don’t tell my wife, but its easy to use the same terms that describe the stages of a relationship with a person as to describe a relationship with a product.

Think about it. The cautious optimism of courtship driven by curiosity and an interest in fitting a predetermined need. Then the giddy excitement of the honeymoon and the time spent trying to figure out how to best work together. As the years roll on, however, the excitement turns to the familiar, and early passions transform into the strength of earned trust and reliability.

The following set of blog entries will look at the Customer Cycle and provide detailed framework to understand the lifecycle for your product and define specific steps to leverage this understanding to tailor customer treatments and messaging to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat purchase.
AGENDA
1. Stages of the Lifecycle
2. Defining your customer lifecycle with Product, Purchase, Brand
3. The chase: Courting Successful Acquisition
4. Newlyweds: Learning to live with a new Customer
5. Steady as a rock: Maintaining a Mature Customer

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