# How would you do it: Managing customer life cycles

**URL:** <https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-would-you-do-it-managing-customer-life-cycles/3800>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [May 17, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-would-you-do-it-managing-customer-life-cycles/3800 "2016-05-17T18:23:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dirk\_s](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/dirk_s/32/748_2.png) [@dirk\_s](https://forum.mautic.org/u/dirk_s)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-would-you-do-it-managing-customer-life-cycles/3800/1 "2016-05-17T18:23:30Z")

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What are your thoughts about this:  
  
  
  
I would love to manage leads through their complete life cycle: from prospect to potentially ex-customer. I think this could be done through lists. However - leads might decide to opt out of one newsletter and may get back later to subscribe to another. As I understand, currently I could move them from list to list, but whenever they opt-out, I would move them to a list named “unsubscribed”.  
  
  
  
However - I would then loose the current phase in the life cycle. I could also add the user to “unsubscribed” as a second list, but I don’t think I could select customers for a mailing based on a logical combination of two lists - e.g. sending email to “trial customers” who are not member of “unsubscribed” at the same time?  
  
  
  
Having two lists per life cycle step as alternative seems a bit over-engineered for me?  
  
  
  
Probably there is a much easier solution I missed? Or should I rather combine mautic with a CRM?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dirk\_s](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/dirk_s/32/748_2.png) [@dirk\_s](https://forum.mautic.org/u/dirk_s)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-would-you-do-it-managing-customer-life-cycles/3800/2 "2016-05-17T18:23:30Z")

</div>

What are your thoughts about this:

I would love to manage leads through their complete life cycle: from prospect to potentially ex-customer. I think this could be done through lists. However - leads might decide to opt out of one newsletter and may get back later to subscribe to another. As I understand, currently I could move them from list to list, but whenever they opt-out, I would move them to a list named “unsubscribed”.

However - I would then loose the current phase in the life cycle. I could also add the user to “unsubscribed” as a second list, but I don’t think I could select customers for a mailing based on a logical combination of two lists - e.g. sending email to “trial customers” who are not member of “unsubscribed” at the same time?

Having two lists per life cycle step as alternative seems a bit over-engineered for me?

Probably there is a much easier solution I missed? Or should I rather combine mautic with a CRM?