Lifecycle advocacy is a powerful approach to customer engagement that allows organizations to hone in on all those key opportune moments. But, as with most forward-thinking strategies, it’s not a one-size-fits-all tactic and implementing it can present some challenges. But don’t worry. We’re going to help you understand those challenges and provide some practical solutions to overcome them.
What is Lifecycle Advocacy?
But first, what exactly is lifecycle advocacy? We loved how Nicole Dingley, VP of Marketing at Ad Astra and 2024 Lifecycle Advocacy CAP Award winner, defines it:
“Lifecycle advocacy is a power-sharing model that recognizes a company must meet customers where they are, relinquishing the idea that customers are willing to conform to a standard template of exchanges. [It] honors customers by acknowledging that their experiences and goals are ever-evolving and demand bespoke interactions that satisfy their desires for knowledge, recognition, rewards, and status. At its core, lifecycle advocacy is a continuous and symbiotic process of mutual, omnichannel value-sharing between a company and its advocates, resulting in sustained customer-led growth for the organization.”
Simply put, lifecycle advocacy is the intersection of customer advocacy and customer marketing practices. It allows you to systematically build loyalty and advocacy in natural tandem to the customer journey, meeting customers where they are rather than siloing their advocacy journey within the confines of membership-based programs. We consider it the third layer of the advocacy ecosystem (and if you want to learn more about that, check out this blog introducing the concept of lifecycle advocacy).
Implementation Challenges
Now that we know what it is, let’s talk about the hurdles that can keep us from properly implementing it.
Challenge #1: Managing Touchpoints Across the Customer Journey
Orchestrating interactions across various stages of a customer’s journey can be tough, especially as customer expectations shift. Throw in multiple product lines and it gets way more complex, causing struggles for many advocate and customer marketers.
Solution: Develop a clear engagement map defining specific actions for each customer journey stage (inspired by the Ad Astra team).
- Onboarding & Implementation Phase: Focus on personalized onboarding journeys, dedicated support teams, and intro calls. Use tools, like orchestration platforms, to help streamline communication and ensure consistent touchpoints.
- Early Adoption Phase: Start capturing and storing early feedback by implementing feedback loops and introducing targeted educational content, like webinars or community forums.
- Mid-cycle Adoption/Value Realization Phase: Facilitate knowledge-sharing opportunities through user conferences or collaborative workshops to deepen engagement and foster stronger relationships amongst customers and their peers.
- Mature Adoption/Advocacy Phase: Invite customers to contribute more meaningfully through advocacy programs.
By establishing distinct actions within each stage, advocacy teams can better align their efforts with customer needs at each point in the lifecycle, leading to more personalized and impactful advocacy experiences.
Challenge #2: Cross-Functional Buy-In and Collaboration
No matter what stage of engagement you’re at, unifying teams around a shared advocacy vision and fostering collaboration across departments is crucial for success. It’s hard to bring a vision to life (aka an improved customer experience) when no one in the company knows what you’re doing or why you’re doing it (or even how they can support you)!
Solutions:
- Establish joint goals across departments to enhance collaboration. At Lytho, they’ve “created advocacy goals that Implementation Consultants and Customer Success Managers are individually accountable for. ” - Brittany Pais, Lytho, 2024 Lifecycle Advocacy CAP Award finalist
- Establish structured support systems. Ad Astra customers are invited to participate in a biannual Voice of the Customer feedback program, hold regular quarterly business reviews (QBRs) with their customer success managers, attend exclusive webinars, and join Client Town Hall meetings.“[This feedback] has continuously helped us retool our product roadmap, messaging, and engagement strategy.” - Nicole Dingley
- Educate teams on the value of advocacy. The Hitachi Vantara team creates internal awareness of their programs by creating short educational videos. “We [create] video snippets to educate internal teams about the Customer Advocacy Program – bite size learning. The [sales team] have especially found them useful because they are short, thus easy to digest.” - Jennifer Schmitz, Hitachi Vantara
Challenge #3: Aligning Technology and Processes
As we’ve learned, advocacy initiatives often span multiple touchpoints and departments. Integrating systems and technologies across departments is a must for creating a seamless customer experience. Otherwise, organizations risk creating disjointed experiences that can frustrate customers and hinder advocacy efforts.
Solutions:
- Establish clear processes. Define roles and responsibilities and create workflows that help to clearly establish how each department contributes to the customer journey. Internal understanding generates external cohesion.
- Foster connections through events. Ad Astra customers can connect with and learn from other customers by engaging in annual conferences, virtual events, regional summits, and various programs designed to recognize and celebrate their success. “These events are always hosted at one of our client's colleges and typically draw an audience of 100+ attendees…[Customers] use the opportunity to network and collaborate with peers in their regional area.” - Nicole Dingley
- Engage customers in strategic initiatives such as Customer Advisory Boards or other client groups. “CAB members play a vital role in shaping the company's strategic direction by providing insights and feedback on industry trends, product development, and client needs. In return, CAB members benefit from networking opportunities, influence over product direction, and increased visibility for their institutions as industry leaders, including opportunities for participation in case studies, success stories, and conference presentations at major industry conferences.” - Nicole Dingley
- Utilize technology to streamline access to customer proof points and insights. At Hitachi Vantara, they “have a reference tool that we keep updated and a library of Internal Win stories on our sales content tool – sales, marketing and product can more easily self-serve the customer proof points they need. We also have a tool to report on customer assets completed, in process and in pipeline so leadership can review it and grab their own stats.” - Jennifer Schmitz
- Implement centralized tools to streamline advocate interactions. AlphaSense leverages technology to track customer asks in a centralized location.“With the help of our new advocacy program management tool, Champion, we are able to record advocate interactions much more effectively, allowing us to be more mindful of which clients we’re asking to participate in advocacy. This, in turn, ensures we’re taking the onus off of the Account Managers who we had previously called upon to reach out to the clients to participate in these activities." - Jenna Feldman
Evaluating Your Lifecycle Advocacy Efforts
Lifecycle advocacy is not a one-and-done initiative, but a continuous process of relationship-building, proactive engagement, and constant adaptation. Regardless of where you’re at in your lifecycle advocacy journey, consider the following questions to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts:
- What stages make the most sense considering your business, product lines, industries, etc.?
- What metrics are you currently using to measure success at each stage of your customer journey?
- How involved are other departments and/or teams in your efforts? Do you share any common goals?
- How diversified are your engagement strategies, and what new methods can you explore to keep advocates involved?
- How are you actively monitoring customer feedback? Are there additional ways you can track and monitor feedback? How are you leveraging internal tools and teams to best support your customers across their journey?
By reflecting on these questions and implementing some of the tactics outlined throughout this post, you can foster stronger relationships with your customers, drive your advocacy programs forward, and fuel growth for your business.
