Funnel vs. Flywheel

Customer centricity

The old funnel is a good way to explain a framework of marketing and sales in general. But in reality potential users/clients/customers don’t start at the top and go in a straight line down the funnel to become customers in the end. Today’s digital reality makes this process more complex. In reality users go up and down the funnel all the time. A more modern framework is needed.

In reality the customer experience flywheel is more descriptive in how we should think about our marketing and sales efforts. Each part of the wheel empowers the other parts. If you manage to get the wheel spinning it will increase speed over time.

What I appreciate about this new approach is that it puts the customer in the center. Every activity you as a company engage in, whether it is product development [Engage], sales [Engage], marketing [Attract] or customer care [Delight], should always be based on what customers wants and needs. It means the customers is not an outcome of what you do, but rather it should be seen as a driving force and facilitator of what you actually decide to produce or serve; and how you do it too. This is especially important in today’s landscape where word of mouth and refer a friend programs are becoming increasingly important. Potential customers today have much easier access to “reviews and comments” about your company through digital channels indeed.

Another important difference of the flywheel model is that it tears down the “silo” effect of organisations. The old funnel creates a framework where different parts of the organisation end up looking at their own particular part of the funnel and ignores the “next step” and “the previous step” of the funnel and customer journey. This typically creates silos and walls between teams like communication (eg PR), marketing, sales, product and customers service. A better approach is to acknowledge that each team is incredibly dependent on the other team to generate a great overall customer journey. By realising this you will end up with a scaling model that reinforces every other part of they customer journey.

Of course, to generate a great spinn on the flywheel, you will need to work cross functionally and set up goals and plans together through the teams. It requires an advanced cross functional team work indeed, but the upside is a great customer journey that reinforces itself over time. Word of mouth will be an important, if not the most important, channel in a digital future.

The flywheel model above is an illustration I have borrowed from Hubspot, who I rank high as company with a good knowledge base for anything related to product, marketing and sales. They have a lot of great content explaining the flywheel model. Read up on the flywheel at their website here.