Designing a LifeCycle is all about sending the right message, to the right client, at the right time. Establishing an effective rhythm is critical to building a successful reminder cadence.
How often should I contact my customers?
Once a client is due for service, you should try to contact them 8-12 times in the first 90 days using 2-3 different mediums (email, text, call, postcard). If they don’t respond, reduce the frequency and use strategic “pauses”. Pausing and resuming reminders every couple of months is far more effective than stopping all contact after X attempts.
Balancing Email, Text, and Phone Calls
Aside from counting the number of times you contact a client, balancing the contact medium is important. For instance, never send a message using the same medium more than 2x in a row. If the client has received two emails in the last 10 days (but they have not responded) then the next point of contact should be a text, phone call, or postcard. This helps increase the effectiveness of your reminders and decrease the “Annoyance Factor”.
Using Contact Preferences
If a customer has a preference for one type of contact over another, then consider designing a LifeCycle that favors this specific contact medium, but don’t abandon the others. Diversify your approach so as to not overuse a single medium. If you rely too heavily on a single medium your effectiveness will decrease over time.
There are cases when relying on a single contact medium is appropriate (e.g. if a customer indicates they only want to get texts, never calls or emails), but this is rare. Most customers will appreciate a diversified approach to your reminder strategy. If a client has strong preferences you can change their contact preferences to “No Email” or “No Text” so Gazelle omits that medium from their LifeCycle cadence – or – consider assigning them to another LifeCycle. When a client wants to opt-out of email, you want to avoid a situation where the LifeCycle they are assigned to relies primarily on email and not enough on the other methods of communication.
How many LifeCycles should I use:
Your “Default” LifeCycle should utilize all of your preferred types of contact (email, text, call, postcards). As you come to understand each individual client’s needs you can consider moving them over to a specialized LifeCycle that is less diversified and more focused on their unique needs. Keep in mind, clients can only be assigned to a single LifeCycle at a time, you should consider designing additional LifeCycles if you identify a group of clients who have a common set of needs. We recommend starting out with one or two LifeCycles and adding more on as-needed.
Here are some ideas for common LifeCycles folks are creating:
- Full Slate (email, text, call, postcards)
- Partial (text, postcard, call)
- Partial (email, postcard, call)
- Partial (email, text)
- Email Only
- Text Only
- Call Only
- PostCard Only
You can also consider designing a LifeCycle for a specific group of clients:
- Residential Clients
- Churches & Businesses
- Institutional Accounts
- Pre-Gazelle Customers
A Word of Caution
Gazelle is incredibly flexible and can accommodate almost any type of reminder cadence and sequence. Just be careful not to over design your outreach efforts. Keep it simple and remember, “Confuse you lose” applies to both you and your customers. If you have 10 different LifeCycles and you can’t figure out which one you should use, then you have too many and you should consider focusing your efforts.
Need help? Reach out to one of our staff. We are happy to help you in anyway you need. support@gazelleapp.io.
