Customer lifecycle management

Lifecycle groups permanent customer accounts by internal sales stage. In the view, you can view customers in one stage, the number of open CRM deals, and the last time the stage was changed, and immediately move the customer to another stage.

A lifecycle stage is not an order status, customer group, or automatic scoring. It is a CRM classification maintained by the team and used to structure customer work.

Lifecycle: group customers by sales stage

Lifecycle groups customers by sales stage into six views: Not Set , Lead , MQL , SQL , Customer , and Departed . The number on the stage button indicates the number of repeat customers in that group. By default, the view opens to the Lead stage. The selected stage displays the customer's name, possible organization, email, number of open CRM deals, date of change, and the Move to stage option.

Use stages according to a common operating model. For example, Lead can mean a new lead, MQL a marketing qualified contact, SQL a sales qualified opportunity, and Customer a current customer. Departed is a classification of customer churn; it does not mean a lost CRM deal.

The stage does not progress automatically based on orders, deals, or activities. The user selects the stage in the Lifecycle view or on the customer's CRM tab. Therefore, agree with your team which event will trigger each transition and who is responsible for keeping the stages up to date.

Open Lifecycle and select a stage

The selection of the lifecycle stage is made on the Lifecycle page in the CRM menu.

1. Open CRM > Lifecycle .
2. If necessary, open Filters .
3. Select Not Set , Lead , MQL , SQL , Customer , or Departed .
4. Check the number of customers and the table for the selected stage.

The lifecycle address in management is /crm/lifecycle . The stage buttons act as quick filters, and only customers in one stage are visible at a time.

If there are no customers in a stage, the view will show an empty space. This does not mean that the customer register is empty; switch to another stage or check the Not set group.

Interpret the life cycle stages

It is worth recording the importance of lifecycle stages according to your own sales process, because the system does not infer it from business rules.

• Not set : No actual lifecycle stage has ever been recorded for the customer.
• Lead : a new contact that is interested or waiting to be processed.
• MQL : marketing qualified lead.
• SQL : an opportunity approved by sales and ready for further work.
• Customer : A contact classified as a customer by the team.
• Departed : a contact classified as having left the customer relationship.

These classifications do not check order history, for example. Moving to the Customer stage does not require an order, and the creation of an order does not in itself move a contact to the Customer stage.

The Lost stage can be used as a target group for winback efforts, but the stage does not trigger a campaign or other automation on its own. The lost status of a CRM deal is handled separately in the deal details.

Read the customer line

Read the customer line using key information from the lifecycle work:

• Name and possible organization
• E-mail
• Open stores
• Altered
• Move to step .

Select the customer's name to open their customer details. Open deals are calculated from CRM deals associated with the customer that have a status of open. The number does not include won or lost deals and cannot be changed in the Lifecycle view.

Changed indicates the last saved time of the lifecycle stage. The service also retrieves the information of the administrator who made the change, but the Lifecycle table does not currently show the name. The person who made the change is displayed in the Lifecycle section of the CRM tab for an individual customer.

The view excludes temporary customer accounts. Temporary customers associated with abandoned shopping carts do not increase the number of steps.

Move the customer to another stage

Moving a customer to another stage is saved immediately without a separate Save button.

1. Find the customer in the current stage.
2. Open the Move to step option for the row.
3. Select Lead, MQL, SQL, Customer, or Departed.
4. Check that the view moves to the selected step and the customer is displayed at the beginning of it.

The user interface will immediately optimistically move the customer to the new group and update the displayed quantities. The change will then be sent to the server. If the save fails, the previous groups and quantities will be restored and the view will display an error message.

Saving a stage records the time and administrator of the change. Not set is not a selectable target stage: it only describes a customer for whom a stage has not yet been saved. Once an actual stage has been selected for a customer, they cannot be returned to the Not set group from the current user interface.

Update the step on the customer's CRM tab

You can also update the lifecycle stage of an individual customer on the customer's CRM tab.

1. Open the customer details page.
2. Select CRM .
3. Find the Lifecycle section.
4. Select a new step.

The change is saved immediately. After a successful save, the section displays the time and author of the change. During the save, the selection is locked, and failure displays an error message.

If a customer has not yet been assigned a stage, the Customer page selection now defaults to the Lead stage. This does not mean that the Lead has already been saved: check the customer's actual group in the Not Assigned view on the Lifecycle page before changing the selection.

Prioritize sales work

Prioritize sales work by going through Elinkaari's customer base step by step and comparing the classification to active stores.

• Check new Lead customers and arrange the next contact.
• Make sure that the MQL and SQL definitions are the same for everyone.
• Compare SQL stage customers to the Open Deals count; zero can indicate a missing CRM deal.
• Check for customers in the Customer stage who do not have active sales work.
• Go through the Exited phase according to the agreed-upon win-back process.
• Check Not set regularly to ensure new customer accounts are not left unclassified.

Stage counts represent current classification, not historical funnel transitions or conversion rates. Do not use them to calculate conversions for a period without a separate transaction history and time range.

Search and large customer volumes

The Lifecycle service interface supports a q search limited by name, email, and organization, but the current Lifecycle page does not have a visible search field. The user's normal workflow is based on step buttons.

If you want to find an individual customer in the user interface, use the customer list and open the customer's CRM tab. Do not wait for the customer search described in the old instructions on the Lifecycle page until the visible search function has been implemented.

The service currently returns all permanent customers in a phase without pagination. A large customer base can therefore make the view heavy. Handle mass updates in controlled batches and ensure that each transfer is recorded.

CRM module preview mode

The lifecycle is part of the CRM module. Without a subscription, the page shows the preview structure of the CRM module, but the customer information is hidden and the stage cannot be changed.

The preview step counts are not actual customer data. Please enable the CRM module before categorizing or reporting on steps.

The same module limit applies to the lifecycle selection on the customer CRM tab. You cannot save a step in preview mode.

The preview is intended to show you the structure of the workspace before you deploy the module. Do not use the hidden customer row, its Lead example stage, or the example count to interpret your own customer base.

Impact on online shopping

There is no impact on the online store because the lifecycle stage is an internal CRM classification for management. It is not visible to the customer in the online store and does not change the price, balance, availability, visibility or checkout of the products.

The step also does not move a CRM deal, create an activity, or send a message. If the classification needs to trigger other work, do so using a separate agreed-upon process.

The lifecycle stage value can be used in other CRM management views, such as Customer 360, retention, segments, and tag analytics. This visibility does not make the stage an ecommerce business rule.

Good to know

• Lifecycle only shows permanent customer accounts.
• The stages are Not Set, Lead, MQL, SQL, Customer, and Exited.
• The default view is Lead.
• The transfer is saved immediately and if unsuccessful, the previous grouping is restored.
• Not set is not a selectable target phase.
• Open deals are calculated from the customer's open CRM deals.
• The Lifecycle table shows the time of the change but not the cause.
• There is no visible customer search or pagination on the current page.
• The lifecycle phase does not affect the operation of the online store.