Most businesses have a few lifecycle stages that are well looked after, usually the welcome journey and the sales handoff, and several that have no owner at all. This check makes those gaps visible. There are five models to choose from: B2B or professional services, ecommerce or DTC brand, local or field service business, creator, educator or newsletter business, and restaurant brand. Pick the closest, and you’ll see the stages that usually matter for it, from six for a restaurant brand to nine for B2B, ecommerce and service businesses.
For each stage you choose one of three answers: Defined and automated (there’s an agreed rule for who enters the stage and something reliably happens next), Defined, handled manually (the rule exists, but a person has to act on it), or Not clearly defined.
It takes a couple of minutes. One honest limitation: the check records what you believe is in place. It can’t see whether your automation actually fires, or whether the data it depends on is accurate. A stage you mark as automated may still be broken in practice.
Run the check
Reading your coverage score
The result starts with a coverage percentage. An automated stage counts fully, a manual stage counts half, and an undefined stage counts zero. That percentage gets one of three labels: Well covered at 75% or above, Partly covered from 50%, and Significant gaps below that.
Under the score you’ll see two lists. The first names the stages without a clear definition. The system can’t tell who is in those stages, so the messages and tasks meant for them either never happen or reach the wrong people. The second lists stages that are defined but handled by hand. Those work when someone remembers, and they’re usually the cheapest to automate because the rules already exist.
An undefined stage sitting between two automated ones deserves the closest look, because that’s where customers stall. A typical example: an ecommerce brand has a strong welcome flow and a well-built win-back flow, but nothing for the period after a first order. New customers go from a run of welcome emails straight into general promotions, and the next lifecycle rule that notices them is the win-back, months later.
Before you pick “Defined and automated” for a stage, ask yourself two questions. Could you write down, in one sentence, what puts someone into this stage? And what happens automatically when they get there? If either answer is vague, choose one of the other options instead, and test the stage later.
Gaps at the far end of the lifecycle are common too, which is why the B2B model includes Reactivation and the ecommerce model includes Sunset / suppression. A B2B team with no rule for lost deals leaves contacts sitting in “opportunity” indefinitely. An ecommerce brand without an inactive-customer definition keeps mailing people who stopped reading a year ago.
An automated stage is a starting point for questions, not proof that it works. The most useful next step is usually to pick one gap and one automated stage and trace a real customer through both.
What to do with the gaps
For definitions and examples of each stage, read our guides to CRM lifecycle stages and customer lifecycle mapping. If the gaps are about how records move between stages rather than missing emails, lifecycle strategy is the right starting point. If the stages are defined but not automated, that’s lifecycle automation.