The Customer Journey, Stage 6: Retention

Wel­come to the final instal­ment of my cus­tomer jour­ney series.

By this stage, you and your cus­tomers have been down a long road togeth­er. You’ve caught the inter­est of anony­mous view­ers, attract­ed them to your web­site, and engaged them with com­pelling, per­son­alised con­tent that con­verts them into cus­tomers. Then you’ve onboard­ed those cus­tomers in a seam­less way, and com­mu­ni­cat­ed con­sis­tent­ly with them, in one voice, through­out their life­time. You’ve also pre­dict­ed and resolved any con­flicts, ensur­ing they remain hap­py with the prod­ucts and ser­vices you provide.

The final stage of this jour­ney is reten­tion: all you need the cus­tomer to do is stick with you, and not switch to a com­peti­tor. Deliv­er­ing a great expe­ri­ence from the start has helped, but there is still a lit­tle more to do. Thus, when their mort­gage or insur­ance pol­i­cy comes up for renew­al, you need to engage with them at the right time and with the right mes­sage, to make sure they keep tak­ing that renew­al action year after year.

This stage is real­ly an extension—and an integration—of all the activ­i­ties you’ve been lever­ag­ing in each of the pre­vi­ous stages of the jour­ney. Now that you know your cus­tomers well, you’re in a strong posi­tion to pin­point where they cur­rent­ly are in their life­cy­cles, and to bring the right data togeth­er to deliv­er the most rel­e­vant renew­al mes­sage at the oppor­tune moment—perhaps send­ing them a friend­ly reminder a month before their pol­i­cy is up for renew­al, reaf­firm­ing the val­ue they’ve received from you.

Con­clu­sion

Through­out this entire series, we’ve seen time and again that today’s con­sumer demand con­sis­tent, rel­e­vant expe­ri­ences, and we’ve explored how to deliv­er com­pelling expe­ri­ences through­out the cus­tomer jour­ney, by lever­ag­ing both insight­ful data and great con­tent in dynam­ic, per­son­alised ways, to cap­ture the customer’s inter­est and draw them in.

A great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence boils down to four aspects:

1. It’s com­pelling. It cap­tures the customer’s atten­tion with beau­ti­ful, dynam­ic content.
2. It’s per­son­al. It reflects an under­stand­ing of who and where cus­tomers are and what they like.
3. It’s use­ful. It helps cus­tomers get things done faster and eas­i­er and makes their lives simple.
4. It’s every­where. It’s avail­able wher­ev­er cus­tomers are, whether they’re work­ing, read­ing, watch­ing, shop­ping, social­is­ing, or at the gym.

In short, it all comes down to mak­ing con­tent rel­e­vant for the con­sumer, which is why the omnichan­nel approach is so powerful.

From the con­sumer per­spec­tive, you’ve antic­i­pat­ed and pre­dict­ed what they want—and you’ve used their data in a respect­ful way. You’ve spo­ken to them in one con­sis­tent voice. You’ve been con­sis­tent in the ways you’ve com­mu­ni­cat­ed. You’ve used tech­nol­o­gy in the cor­rect ways—whether that’s desk­top, mobile, email, or any oth­er adver­tis­ing chan­nel. And final­ly, you’ve delight­ed the cus­tomer with an expe­ri­ence that’s rel­e­vant and useful.

When all these things come togeth­er, you’ve deliv­ered not just an ide­al cus­tomer jour­ney, but a great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Wher­ev­er your cus­tomers have been on that journey—from the first stage to the last—you’ve made sure their expe­ri­ence was com­pelling, per­son­al, and use­ful. Which means you’ve done all you can to ensure they’ll remain a cus­tomer for a long time to come.

In fact, because of all the steps you’ve tak­en through­out the time you’ve known your cus­tomers, you’ve made it much eas­i­er to retain them over the long term. Yes, you have to deliv­er the right mes­sage to them at the right time, to make sure they know when to renew their insur­ance pol­i­cy or mort­gage, but you’re already on the front foot of ensur­ing they’ll remain a hap­py customer.

Thanks for join­ing me on this series on the cus­tomer journey!