Episode 1 of 5: Attract and convert new customers
Welcome to the first episode of our Sweet Customer Life Cycle series, where we take you on a journey through the 5 crucial phases that define the relationship between a customer and a business. In this series, we’ll dig into details of the circumstances and needs of each phase, starting with the foundation – Attract and Convert.
Understanding the Customer Life Cycle
The customer lifecycle is more than a buzzword; it’s a dynamic concept that mirrors the evolving relationship between businesses and their customers. It delves into the stages a customer progresses, highlighting their needs, behaviors, and overall maturity within the business relationship. Our approach breaks down this cycle into 5 phases and we look at it from the business’s point of view, with “Attract and Convert” marking the exciting first step. But first, let’s have a look at the circle of life here before digging deeper into the first phase.
At Sweet, we have basically built our business around the customer life cycle, and the process itself has a special place in our core. Our goal and aim have always been to support journeys smooth, attractive, efficient, and easy. With that goal and aim in mind, we’ve built quite complex and remarkable solutions to meet market requirements, but in a way we believe is still user-friendly.
1. Attracting and converting potential customers
We see the beginning of the cycle as the crucial moment where there is an opportunity to attract a potential customer, create curiosity, and a buying desire that motivates the customer to convert and actually become a customer. To warm the leads, interaction is key. If you succeed in converting a lead into a customer, the conversion often requires a set of internal actions that are recurring, heavily manual and repetitive. Perfect to optimize through automation.
2. Onboard: Laying the foundation
Onboarding is the next critical step in the process, where the experience lays the foundation for the upcoming relationship with the customer. A successful onboarding provides the customer with all the tools to get started, a warm welcome, and leaves the customer with a feeling that they made the right decision.
3. Engage and develop
In the following phase, engage/develop, there is a new chance for upselling and ensuring that the customer actively uses the purchased product or service. Responsiveness and attention are keywords for identifying signals of customer satisfaction. The longer one can retain the customer in this phase, the greater the chance of a long-lasting relationship with growing engagement.
4. Retain: Building and expanding customer relationships
If you succeed in engaging and developing the customer, the next phase retain follows. This is where the customer maintains a lower profile but is still relatively stable and self-sufficient. It is important not to confuse this with the relationship being secured; maintenance is also required from the company’s perspective to nurture the relationship and ensure retention. It is also crucial to be attentive to new buying signals or unusual patterns that may indicate an exit.
5. Off-board/Win Back: Waving goodbye, or getting a second chance
When reaching the final stage of the lifecycle, off-board/win back, there is a last opportunity to win back the customer or end in a way that gives the customer a positive feeling of being welcome back. Humility and understanding are key components to successfully turn a customer at this stage. It is also important to listen and try to understand the underlying reasons for the exit to potentially act differently in the future. This stage offers many valuable insights.
Converting strategy into actions
Creating an effective strategy during the attraction phase involves a delicate dance between aligning with your target audience’s needs and communicating in a manner that resonates with them. Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? However, executing this strategy efficiently, and reaching the right audience without breaking the bank, can be a hard balancing act.
Sweet's solution to the challenges
Here’s where Sweet steps in to make your journey smoother. We empower you with tools that transform your strategy into actionable steps. Imagine seamlessly integrating multiple sources of both inbound and outbound channels, collecting and categorizing interactions effortlessly. Sweet allows you to create a structured plan of action based on your insights into potential customers.
Transformation of strategy into actionable steps: Sweet provides you with powerful tools that take your attraction strategy beyond conceptualization. We empower you to translate your vision into actionable steps, ensuring that every move aligns with your overarching goals. With Sweet, you can decide and prepare your next move using our rules engine Sweet Automation.
Seamless integration of channels: Imagine effortlessly bringing together various inbound and outbound channels under one roof. Sweet enables seamless integration, allowing you to connect with potential customers through multiple touchpoints while maintaining a cohesive and unified approach.
Effortless interaction management: Sweet streamlines the process of collecting and categorizing interactions as well as communicating. No more complexities of handling diverse sources; instead, focus on effortlessly managing interactions to gain valuable insights into your potential customers. With the use of Sweet Automation to create automated actions and rules for optimizing engagement, it’s easy to nurture several relationships at once.
Structured plan of action: With Sweet, you not only collect data but also transform it into a structured plan of action. Leverage your insights into potential customers to create targeted and effective strategies that resonate with your audience.
Seal the deal: Successful attraction leads to conversion, depending on the nature of the offer the buying process looks different. A product is paid upfront or invoice, while a service need an agreement and a pay plan stretching over the year. Make sure you get the customer details needed to evolve the relation och create the foundation to make it last.
CRM: Unveiling the essence of customer relationship management
In a nutshell, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the heartbeat of your business operations. Here’s a glimpse of its transformative power across key domains:
Marketing mastery: Sweet CRM empowers you to craft comprehensive marketing plans, breaking them down into actionable steps assigned to teams or individuals. Build and refine your segments and target audience, laying the foundation for strategic and effective marketing endeavors.
Pipeline management precision: As prospects transition into leads, CRM ensures meticulous tracking of progress and essential details. From identification to qualification, keep an organized record of every step to inform your next move.
Customer 360 view: Gain a holistic perspective with CRM’s ability to consolidate communication history, responses, contact details, and segment affiliations. This 360-degree view guides your next steps, fostering a deeper and more meaningful customer engagement.
Automation: Elevating customer journeys with minimal administration
Sweet Automation and its Customer Journey Builder is your secret weapon for nurturing a multitude of prospects, leads, and diverse audiences in seconds. At this stage, most customers have the need for an e-marketing tool to communicate through their own channels – Sweet supports several. Experience the magic of automated workflows that reduce administrative burdens, allowing you to focus on creating meaningful connections.
In collaboration with our e-marketing partners, we extend communication channels that seamlessly keep your leads and customers engaged. At this point, relationships may teeter between strong and confident, and fragile, underscoring the significance of your nuanced approach.
By using Sweet Automation as your tool for customer journeys, you have the power to easily adapt to changing market needs, differentiate your communication, or react to events or behavior from your counterpart. Adjusting the automated flows, or the segments can be done by you. This shortens the time-to-market and gives you full flexibility without being dependent on the IT department or other common bottlenecks.
Forms: The digital gateway to customer data collection
Collecting valuable data from potential customers is made seamless and user-friendly with the Sweet Forms platform. Customize your digital forms, making them adjustable and accessible, ensuring a smooth and engaging data collection process.
Sweet Forms is your go-to solution when you need a digital agreement and/ or a signature of the terms and conditions, or when you need to ask for details about your new customer. The Sweet Form solution allows you to define and manage a digital process for collecting customer data, on their own initiative or upon request. Our Form Flow is the tool when there is more than one form to sign or fill in and you want to guide your customer into the next step of the process.
With Sweet Forms at your fingertips, you as a Form Designer have the power to modify and refine your process as you learn more about user interactions and behavior. Together with the insights you collect along the way, you can quickly adapt to changes and make sure to follow the ever-changing trends or turns that might come your way.
When your data is in place, your next step in the customer journey can begin. Automated? Yes, always!
In essence, the attraction and conversion phase is not just about casting a wide net; it’s about casting it strategically. Sweet ensures that your efforts are not only attractive but also have tools that empower you to be efficient, and automated while converting. By streamlining your activities and interactions, we help you strike the delicate balance needed to captivate your audience without exhausting your resources.
Get in touch with us today if you need a helping hand managing your customer lifecycle with speed and finesse.
Stay tuned for the next episode where we will guide you through the stage of “Onboarding”.
Can’t wait?
Find out how Volvofinans used Sweet for automating and digitalizing their customer lifecycle and increased upsales by 30 % after implementing Sweet.
