Tools to Power Every Stage of the Customer Lifecycle Journey

Summary

This blog post explores the essential technologies needed to support customer-led growth across the key stages of the customer lifecycle: onboarding, value realization, growth, and advocacy. It oulines the tech categories and provides tool examples that help businesses deliver seamless, value-drive customer experiences.

By Brenna Lofquist, Client Services Operations Manager at Heinz Marketing

Customer-led growth (CLG) is a strategy that depends on aligning your tools with each stage of the customer lifecycle. CLG goes beyond onboarding, you have to actively engage your customers and provide resources for long lasting success. From onboarding to advocacy, the right tech stack enables you to deliver seamless experiences, unlock value faster, and drive long-term expansion. In this post, we’ll explore the key technologies that can support and scale customer-led growth.

 

Customer Lifecycle Stages

Before we dive into the technology, it’s important to note that you should have defined customer lifecycle stages. Similar to the normal sales stages, each customer lifecycle stage should have a definition, goal to advance to the next stage, and defined roles/responsibilities for each team involved. Here’s a look at the stages we use internally.

Another important note that the tools/tech listed below is not an extensive list and might not make sense for your organization. It depends on your product or solution and your current tech stack. Before you add more technology, it’s best to conduct a tech stack audit to determine what you have available and where you have gaps. In our experience, most technology is underutilized and there might be features or functions you don’t know about, that would be beneficial to your organization.

A great example is that you’ll notice a handful of platforms show up under multiple stages. The more support one platform can provide, the better. It’s best to utilize tools to their fullest potential, which saves you money (in some cases) and keeps your tech stack lean.

Now let’s breakdown the tech that can support each stage.

Onboarding

The goal in this stage is to ensure smooth adoption and early time-to-value. Below are potential tools that can support this stage. Determine the right mix for your org!

• Customer Onboarding Platforms
  • Rocketlane, GuideCX, ChurnZero
  • Manage onboarding projects, track milestones, and collaborate with customers
• Digital Adoption Platforms
  • Pendo, WalkMe, Appcues, Whatfix
  • In-app guidance, tooltips, walkthroughs, and product tours
• Customer Success Platforms
  • Gainsight, Totango, Catalyst
  • Track onboarding health scores, automate tasks, and manage playbooks
• Learning Management Systems (LMS)
  • Skilljar, LeanrUpon, Docebo
  • Offer structured traning and certifications to support product education
• Workflow Automation/Integration
  • Zapier, Workato, Tray.io
  • Automate onboarding tasks and data handoff between teams

Value Realization

The goal at this stage is to help customers achieve outcomes and realize ROI. You want customers to get the most out of your solution and to do that as soon as possible.

• Product Analytics
  • Mixpanel, Amplitude, Heap, Pendo
  • Track feature usage, identify adoption trends, and uncover friction points
• Customer Success Platforms
  • Gainsight, Totango, Planhat
  • Monitor health scores, track succes plans, and alerts CSMs of risk/opportunity
• Surveys / Voice of Customer (VoC)
  • Medallia, Qualtrics, Typeform, Delighted
  • Collect feedback on feature usefulness and buiness outcomes
• BI / Reporting 
  • Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Mode
  • Create executive-level dashboards on usage, engagement, and business impact

Growth

The goal at this stage is to drive upsell, cross-seel, and product expansion. If your customers are happy, they are more willing to expand, which means more business for you.

• Customer Success Platforms
  • Gainsight, Totango, Catalyst
  • Identify expansion-ready accounts with usage and sentiment data
• CRM + CPQ (Configure Price Quote)
  • Salesforce + Salesforce CPQ, Hubspot, DealHub
  • Manage renewals, pricing, and upsell motions
• Revenue Intelligence / Forecasting
  • Clari, Gong, Aviso
  • Analyze buyer signals and forecasting expansion deals
• Marketing Automation & ABM
  • Marketo, Hubspot, Demandbase, 6sense
  • Launch targeted campaigns to promote new features or offerings to existing customers
• Product-Led Growth 
  • Pendo, Appcues, Gainsight PX
  • Prompt upsell or feature trials based on usage patterns in-app

Advocacy

The goal at this stage it to turn happy customers into promoters and influencers. If you’re customers are truly happy with your offering, they are willing to share with their networks. Sometimes you just have to provide the right tools to allow them to do so.

• Customer Advocacy / Reference Management
  • Influitive, SlapFive, ReferenceEdge
  • Manage advocacy programs, track references, and gamify engagement
• Community Platforms
  • Higher Logic, Discourse, Slack, Gainsight Digital Hub
  • Foster peer-to-peer support and self-service
• Review & Referral Management
  • TrustRadius, G2, ReferralRock, Birdeye
  • Encourage reviews and referrals through structured outreach
• CSAT/NPS Collection
  • Delighted, AskNicely, Qualtrics
  • Identify promoters and trigger advocacy invites
• Video Testimonials & Content Capture
  • Vocal Video, Testimonial Hero, StoryTap
  • Easily collect and publish customer stories at scale

In summary

Investing in the right tech stack is essential to enabling customer-led growth at every stage of the lifecycle. By thoughtfully aligning tools throughout the customer lifecycle stages, you empower your teams to deliver better outcomes and deepened customer relationships. With the right foundation, growth becomes not just possible but inevitable.

Have any questions or want to talk more about your CLG tech stack? Reach out for a free consultation with one of our experts.