Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Personally, I have only heard the term "pipeline" referred to as a managing a stream of future business. You send direct mail, get responses, and follow them up, those folks who are interested in your offering are in your "pipeline".

Dear Sharadgarg2000,

In my last seven years in sales I've never heard of a "pipeline model" of Customer Retention. As telemoxie said a "pipeline" is a managing tool. Sales people use it to keep track of suspects, prospects and cleints who are hotter than July. The term "pipeline" is a visual model for people to have a picture to examine for tracking and measuring purposes.

Imagine a pipeline that people use to transport water, oil or any other liquid substance from one point to the next. In sales if you have nothing in your pipeline that just means your pipes are empty and you have no potential purchasers. Just like when you're in the oil industry if your pipes are empty you have no business and that's no good. No pipeline = no money...which eventually equals no business.

I can only think that a "pipeline model" of Customer Retention reflects a managing tool used to examine existing customers that you need to retain. Or in short existing customers or clients who are about to leave your company. Existing customers who may leave but your customer retention group should be focused on saving for the company. They would use a pipeline as a visual tool to chart, locate and measure their potential life span with a company. I hope this helps. Is there anything else I can do for you.

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE

You should try www.google.com. I got thousands of hits with different variations of the topic.

Good Luck!