Deep beneath the ocean’s surface – somewhere – a submarine glides silently through the darkness. The sonar technician watches the screen intently. Ping.

A signal. Strong and moving closer. The technician studies the display, satisfied. Everything is going according to plan. Another ping and then it vanishes. No change of direction, no manoeuvres, nothing to suggest it had moved. It just simply disappeared.

The technician, unfazed, moves onto finding the next ping to focus on.

A new prospect appears and the workflows spring into action. Campaigns launched, emails sent and content is delivered. Tracking the engagement pings all the way towards becoming a customer, at which point they simply fall off the marketing radar.

Admittedly, this may be a rather peculiar way to visualise the visibility of our customers. The marketing submarine. Yet, what I find curious with this parallel is thinking how much businesses invest in convincing someone to become a customer, only to reduce attention almost before the ink finishes drying on the purchase order.

Masking metrics

There is a slight contradiction with how businesses think about growth.

We may invest a considerable amount in acquiring a customer who has the potential to purchase repeatedly over a ten or fifteen year period. Yet comparatively-speaking, devote little marketing attention to support that relationship after that first transaction is complete.

Spending time, effort and budget to secure the “lead”, follow up, and nurture. Then pass them over to sales for the deal to be closed. And then…..

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. For both the customer and the commercial teams.

In large part, I would say this is the consequence of attaching the most visible measures of marketing success to acquiring a new customer. Metrics outside of that receive considerably less attention. I would challenge, though, that what gets measured is not necessarily where the greatest value for the business lies.

Of course, numbers remain only one part of a painting. Perhaps this focus on acquisition has an unintended and less obvious consequence. Not only does it influence where we direct the attention of our marketing, but also where we draw the boundaries of responsibility within the business.

Why are these boundaries drawn by businesses around marketing at precisely the point when they have finally earned the trust of a customer and have the opportunity to learn and understand them better?

The boundaries customers didn’t see coming

Customers don’t experience our organisational boundaries.

They are expecting and experiencing one relationship with one business. Look into many businesses, however, and you will find that this relationship is managed as a series of disconnected functional responsibilities.

It is understandable.

Each team has a different role. There needs to be a clearly defined and delineated function, with clear roles and responsibilities. Otherwise either little will get done, or posturing for pole position will be the order of the day. Rather challenging for a CEO looking to run a business effectively. However, that delineation should not be felt by the customer.

From the customer’s perspective, they haven’t crossed into a different relationship. From their view, they are merely entering a different stage of the same one.

It is worth considering as a business, therefore, what the impact and experience is for them as they transition from prospect to customer.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not devaluing the impact of the technical support or customer service team. Providing excellent customer service, however, is not the same as continuing to nurture a customer relationship. An account manager may be brilliant at managing contracts, while the support team are fantastic at resolving problems. Neither may have the responsibility, capacity or perspective to address the emerging customer needs or communicate the wider capabilities of the business.

The relationship beyond the sale

For me, a fundamental question that is missed throughout this entire process, is not only in who takes responsibility from a functional perspective, but in defining what role marketing plays throughout the customer journey beyond the acquisition. What should they contribute after the sale?

This is certainly not intended as a call to bombard the customer with mass communication. It is, however, a call to determine what is useful to the customer and provide continued value through ongoing and intentional communication.

We could be missing the opportunity to help our customers make better use of what they already purchased and maximise their investment, continue building trust while communicating new developments, capabilities or applications which are relevant to their evolving needs, or simply supporting the relationship alongside other functions.

Ultimately, the customer hasn’t become less valuable. They have merely become less visible to the way in which the business measures and manages growth. They become a data point of an apparent install base or an entry point in a CRM system, that doesn’t communicate how that relationship is – or has – developed over time.

They may be recognised through some numbers on a dashboard that represents years of potential future business. We may know when and what they purchased, how many times they have engaged with our service team, but not necessarily what they need now, how their business has changed, and whether we are still relevant to them.

The opportunity, then, comes in auditing what exactly you think you know about your existing customers. And further, to clearly define what you want their experience and journey to be beyond the sale.

After all, becoming a customer shouldn’t mean disappearing from view into the deep.

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