Are you aware that it's easy to understand everything in life in terms of cycles?

If you look closely enough, you can find order in almost anything.

This applies to everything from the natural world to the corporate world, and your SaaS company is no exception.

It comprises numerous cycles, all of which need to operate in tandem for your company to offer SaaS successfully online.

One example of this kind of cycle is the SaaS customer lifecycle.

This article will detail the nine stages of the SaaS customer lifecycle and help you understand why they matter in your business.

Let’s dive right in.

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What is the SaaS customer lifecycle?

The SaaS customer lifecycle encompasses all customer interactions from start to finish, ultimately resulting in customer satisfaction.

In other words, it refers to the processes that lead potential customers to know about your company and the product or service you provide, interact with it, and purchase it.

But is the SaaS market expanding? 

Let’s talk numbers!

According to Statista, the SaaS market volume will reach US$344.00 billion by 2027, with a 7.89% annual growth rate from 2023 to 2027.

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Now that you know, it is critical to understand when clients will arrive, when they will leave, and how much time they will spend in your establishment. This is crucial for deciding future policies.

Every phase of a customer's journey is essential to transform them into regular purchasers.

You must emphasize your customer relationships to create excellent customer experiences.

As a result, it is vital to take client lifecycle management seriously and to follow a strategy.

Customer Lifecycle Management vs. Customer Relationship Management

Both entities assist businesses in developing client relationships, increasing customer happiness, and ensuring recurring revenues.

Customer relationship management (CRM) monitors and manages customer relationships by tracking individual customer interactions.

Customer service representatives, for example, may utilize CRM software to manage customer support requests and keep track of consumer complaints or queries.

On the other hand, customer lifecycle management (CLM) focuses on the complete customer journey to identify possibilities for improvement, such as onboarding, retaining, and upselling clients.

The process involves pinpointing and resolving any obstacles encountered during the customer journey to provide an unparalleled customer experience.

Why is Customer Lifecycle Management Important?

Customer lifecycle management enables businesses to examine a customer's journey from the moment they are exposed to a brand.

Let's look at why this is important for businesses and how it can help them:

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1. Gives One the Ability to Endure in a Cutthroat Market

Throughout the customer lifecycle, businesses may use CLM to provide their customers with specialized and customized services.

As a result, they may better engage with them and understand their consumers' demands, which will improve their experience with the specific brand.

With the help of the data produced by CLM, brands can comprehend their consumers' purchasing patterns, unmet needs, and aspirations.

When customer complaints are recognized, brands can address them to increase customer happiness.

By interacting with customers throughout the customer lifecycle journey, CLM enables organizations to comprehend how their clients feel about the products and services they receive.

The information helps businesses create various plans and policies so that their clients become dependable throughout their journey, and moving to a rival brand becomes a remote possibility.

It enables brands to determine the requirements and expectations of individual clients.

If this does not occur, the brand can devise strategies to satisfy each customer's wants and experience a sense of worth.

2. Operational efficiency

Businesses have a vast amount of data, much of which overlaps.

CLM helps brands reorganize all the data into a central location.

This helps the marketing, sales, finance, and other departments access it and work together to achieve the organization's objectives.

It promotes productivity, efficiency, and visibility and makes a business more obstinate throughout operations.

It may eventually enable them to outperform their rivals.

3. Upsell and cross-sell

Customers occasionally adjust their shopping habits, whether they scale up or down their purchases.

Brands can locate these consumers with the aid of CLM and present them with the most recent purchasing options.

Additionally, brands might actively engage with consumers and present them with consumables for earlier purchases.

4. Decrease churn rate

To determine the churn rate, divide the number of clients at the beginning of a season by the number of consumers who abandoned a brand over that period.

Therefore, brands must continuously monitor the churn rate and work to reduce it to the absolute minimum.

With CLM's aid, businesses can better comprehend their clients and foster their devotion to the brand.

As a result, it boosts customer loyalty and lowers attrition.

Therefore, a slight decrease in the churn rate will increase revenue.

5. Gradually raises the asset's worth

By enhancing the possibility of developing more engaging contact between the brand and the consumer, CLM helps to lengthen the customer relationship lifecycle.

Consumers interact with a brand over an extended period during their lifespan, and both the brand and the customers grow accustomed to one another.

Creating strong ties between a brand's clients through sustained engagement is possible.

The cornerstones of successful customer lifecycle management are empathy, openness, proactivity, and assisting the client wherever and whenever possible throughout the customer journey.

6. Aids in conveying the worth of a product

Through CLM, brands may communicate with customers at all stages of the customer lifecycle with the help of adequately organized data.

Since every consumer has different needs and goals when purchasing, every customer needs tailored communication with the business.

The brand will gain from it by forging lasting bonds with its clients and giving them pleasurable customer experiences.

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The 9 Stages of The SaaS Customer Lifecycle 

The nine stages of the SaaS customer lifetime are divided into three main phases: acquisition, engagement, and retention.

You can get closer to success by completing these SaaS client lifecycle stages.

The nine stages are as follows:

Acquisition

It requires a lot of work to acquire customers.

Statistics have shown that 1 - 44% of businesses spend most of their time and energy acquiring new customers.

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That is most likely because, at this time, clients approach you unaware of your brand.

You must first ensure they are aware of their issues if you hope to get their business.

Customers can still convey that something is wrong and must be fixed immediately, even if they cannot specify their difficulties.

After coming to such conclusions, they look for solutions. Your brand needs to be present there, too.

You must offer information that enables your clients to find solutions to their queries.

Be careful not to make sales pitches.

Instead, you should propose the concept of quick support and settlement of questions.

Outline Buyer Personas and Targets 

Do you currently have any USPs or unique selling propositions that set your SaaS company apart from the competition?

Address this question before defining your client acquisition plan.

Once you've done that, you can use the information you've gained to pinpoint market segments that might be attracted to your industry on their own.

After setting your goals, you should review and evaluate your sales process.

Get your sales team to compile a list of the most significant influencers and locate prospects who can make decisions.

Your buyer personas are now created.

The final step of this stage is to define your key marketing initiatives' target market and put the buyer personas and targets into practice.

Develop Awareness

Your SaaS customer lifecycle begins when the target audience becomes aware of a specific issue after your active marketing strategies are in place.

This is where all your efforts to promote your goods or services will be critical.

Ideally, it should let them know that your SaaS service can help them address their problem.

Consider this the educational phase of the sale, during which you essentially do everything you can to enlighten the customer about what you are offering.

This can entail offering numerous settings that can be accomplished through content marketing.

Blogs and videos are effective in illustrating the problems your solution can solve.

83% of people choose to watch videos over text or audio-based sources of education or information.

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In addition, live chat software can give clients in-depth answers in real time.

With one of the top live chat applications set up, you can:

• Capture the visitors' interest in the website
• Recognize the concerns of visitors
• Announce current specials and discounts
• Immediately resolve the issue
• Increase brand awareness

In general, the more precise you are now, the better outcomes you'll have in the future.

Qualify Your Customers

Customers visiting your website to show interest will enter your simple sales funnel because they know their problem and the available solution.

By keeping track of each prospect's potential, you may also determine if they qualify as leads or consumers.

Do this concurrently with your prospects' efforts to determine whether your SaaS solution fits their problem.

This comprehensive SaaS customer lifecycle analysis also includes tracking customer or lead interest, a crucial component.

You can figure out what they want by looking at the web pages they visit.

You can monitor your website visitors in real time using live chat software to better understand their demands and examine their online behavior.

You may utilize this as a platform to strengthen the relationship by highlighting the benefits of your product or service.

The qualification phase must be viewed as the prelude to the onboarding procedure.

Your employees will be motivated to provide exceptional service, which may increase conversions.

Engagement 

Unlike the previous stage, which focused on getting to know your consumers better, this one is about getting them to make purchases.

Increase revenue and attract new consumers by actively engaging with them at the proper time.

Did you know that compared to customers who are not fully involved, fully engaged customers have a 23% larger share of profitability, revenue, and relationship growth?

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Now you know.

You can complete the following under client engagement:

Customer Purchase 

The crucial moment is unquestionably when your buyer makes the purchase.

As a result, you may start carefully describing the numerous purchasing options to chart your customer's journey.

This approach can be used to test and confirm the elements that affect customers' decisions to buy from you.

Alternatively, you can do this when the sale is finalized, enabling you to assess your marketing efforts, check your payment options, and analyze your supporting documentation.

Inform a lead that you value their business when they convert to a paying client.

Ensure to emphasize the available services and committed assistance at their disposal.

Request feedback so that you may utilize it to close out this phase.

Onboarding and Activation

When the decision to buy is made, the stages of the SaaS client lifecycle change.

Your attention becomes more narrowly focused as you get to know the person who will require training and assistance to operate your product.

Your training resources are the primary consideration in this situation.

They frequently include instructional or demonstration films or other course structures you may have created.

Surprisingly, this is a pivotal time for the majority of SaaS organizations.

You want to be sure that the initial impression leaves a lasting impression on these users.

Active listening makes it easier for you to respond to their needs.

Product Regularity

After your clients have subscribed to the product, they will begin utilizing it consistently.

This is where your company should be active in its everyday operations. Don't forget to treat this crucial stage with the respect it deserves.

If you thoroughly grasp client workflows and how your product can disrupt them, you can decide how to position your SaaS skills in the best way possible.

When people routinely use your service, ask them to share their ultimate objectives.

Advise them on how they can use the product to attain their goals.

Provide your clients with the necessary resources, including the tools, knowledge, and support they may need to implement the management change successfully.

Use live chat software to assist clients with product implementation and customization in real time.

With immediate assistance, you can establish a lasting relationship with your consumers while empowering them by giving them a solution.

Simple GIF animations showcasing service features or the creation of a searchable, instantly available knowledge library can significantly improve SaaS customer care.

Additionally, it can aid in reducing support requests and helpdesk tickets. 

Retention 

Retention emerges as the most significant phase of the SaaS client lifecycle.

Do you doubt this? You shouldn’t.

With an average CRR of about 90%, SaaS companies witness strong retention rates.

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Creating leads that convert is the main priority for most SaaS organizations. They would, without a doubt.

Who would refuse a newly acquired business? What about the present clients, though?

The retention of your current clientele is also necessary.

Owners of SaaS businesses must, therefore, actively invest in this customer lifecycle. Retention allows you to:

Renewals 

As you near the end of your SaaS customer's lifetime, you must integrate it into your customer's daily routine and improve it over time.

Recall the time it took for one consumer to go from the minute they arrived on your website until they were activated.

And now is the time to reflect on both your clients and yourself. 

As a SaaS company, you will determine whether you need to change your pricing policy or enhance your feature set.

On the other hand, your client will be deciding whether your service is valuable enough to include in their budget for the upcoming quarter or year.

The specifics of renewals can generally vary throughout the SaaS client experience.

The plan and the company in question are two crucial factors.

How thoroughly you define your connections and communication will determine your success.

By focusing on customer demands, listening to their worries, being committed to changes, and providing dependability, you may show them that you care about them.

Keep in mind the change in the customer's trip.

A renewal choice will be made if there is a guarantee of increased efficiencies and financial gains.

In the end, it must help their business.

Therefore, you must provide benefits and create a sense of use for them.

Referral and Advocacy

If the subscription renewal was the customer's decision, rejoice.

Then, inquire as to the rationale for their renewal.

If your consumer is devoted and pleased with your service, you will probably get a reaction. With this messaging, all you have to do is pitch it to businesses that are comparable to yours.

If your customer speaks up, the whole process can be elevated to another level.

Statistics show that roughly 70% of customers will likely provide a review when requested.

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Naturally, even if your consumers look satisfied, you must follow up.

Always give them a sincere thank you for choosing you to supply their services, and ask for their recommendations.

Create a strong SaaS referral scheme to entice customers.

Allowing your clients to save money or gain rewards or freebies will encourage them to recommend your brand.

There will be that once-in-a-lifetime chance when you meet a customer who is completely enamored with your brand and will not be shy about telling everyone about it.

To bring in new business opportunities, use them as your brand's evangelists and champions.

This stage of your SaaS client life cycle will help your business develop by providing opportunities for income creation.

Innovation

The customer's lifetime journey continues after all these important stages are completed.

Remember that you want their support for the long term, and you can only achieve this by consistently innovating.

Since technological developments will prompt consumers to seek goods and services that are better versions of themselves, developing new items and capabilities should be a continual activity.

Start by developing a development roadmap for SaaS products that has a clear vision.

This encourages teamwork and aspiration to meet changing client expectations and needs.

Keep in mind that expanding sales is about more than trust.

By showcasing features they haven't seen elsewhere, you need to inspire trust in customers who already prefer your solution to your rivals.

They will be more likely to remain your service partner if they anticipate introducing additional features soon.

The Final Thought

From this article, we agree that customers benefit from a great user experience when connected with the SaaS customer lifecycle stages.

The higher the level of client satisfaction at one stage, the more likely they are to continue to the next. 

The only way to unlock the cycle's potential is to put yourself in your customer's situation and go through the process with them.

At AI bees, we'll work with you to optimize each stage of the customer lifecycle using our AI-powered B2B solution so that it creates enduring connections with your clients.

Schedule a demo today to learn more.