Strategy & economics
Lifecycle stage
Also known as: customer lifecycle stage
A label describing where a customer sits in the buying / using / churning arc — new, active, at-risk, dormant, reactivated — which drives which lifecycle program they're eligible for.
A lifecycle stage tags each customer with their current relationship state. Common stage models: new (signed up, not yet activated), active (transacting on a healthy cadence), at-risk (engagement is dropping relative to their baseline), dormant (no recent activity past a defined window), churned (officially ended relationship), reactivated (returned after dormancy). Stages are computed from behavioural signals (last transaction, last login, engagement score) and updated on a schedule — often daily. Each stage maps to a specific lifecycle program: onboarding for new, winback for dormant, saves for at-risk, VIP for high-LTV active. The stage model sits above segmentation: segmentation is about who a customer is, stage is about where they are. A cohort (acquisition month) and stage (current state) together uniquely place every customer in the program grid.