What are common customer lifecycle stages? (e.g., new subscriber, first-time buyer, loyal customer, at-risk)

Lifecycle stages should reflect how relationships with your business actually work, not theoretical frameworks from marketing textbooks.

Map your customer journey. What are the meaningful transitions? Signup, first purchase, repeat purchase, subscription renewal, cancellation. Each transition marks a potential stage boundary.

Define clear criteria. What makes someone "active" versus "at-risk"? Is it recency of purchase, login frequency, engagement score? Be specific. Vague definitions create overlapping or inconsistent segments.

Start simple. Three to five stages are usually enough. Prospect, customer, at-risk, churned. You can add granularity later. Over-complicated lifecycle models become impossible to maintain.

Consider your business model:

Subscription businesses have clear lifecycle events: trial start, trial end, active subscription, approaching renewal, churned.

E-commerce tracks purchase behavior: first purchase, repeat buyer, lapsed buyer.

B2B tracks pipeline stages: lead, opportunity, customer, expansion opportunity.

Validate with data. Do your stages actually predict different behaviors? If "active" and "at-risk" customers behave identically, your definition isn't working. Iterate until stages produce meaningfully different engagement patterns.