Every business whether it is a startup or an enterprise is a system. When a part of a system does not work, the whole system fails. You may have already heard about correlation between viral loops and growth hacking. Let’s see why we should also consider customer service in this system.
So you have got an innovative digital product and you are looking for a rapid growth. It is not the right time yet to establish marketing or financial departments, or any other department that a healthy business has. You only need customers to make thing going. That is when the growth hacking term comes into use. Growth hacking strategy differs from traditional marketing approach because it is only aimed at quick growth. Traditional marketing has different goals, and you will definitely set up a marketing department later, when you get customers.
So the boundaries are already narrowed to a digital business and startups. Growth hacking is about digital business because explosive growth is mostly possible for online products because of technical capabilities. Growth hacking is about startups, because without extensive resources they often need rapid growth to survive, and they are more flexible to changes and open to extravagant ideas than larger companies. But the main reason why we think of digital products when we talk about growth hacking is that only digital products can become viral.
Virality is the fastest way to grow your digital business. Actually, if you plan to growth hack your business, your product should be designed viral. Virality should be the core and the spirit of your product. Viral loop means that you start with a few clients, they bring more than one customer each, and every new customer brings more than one customer again. Vivid examples of viral growth is Skype, Facebook, Dropbox, AirBNB, Twitter, PayPal, YouTube. We used to invite family members and colleagues to Skype to be able to easily connect with them. Without them on Skype, you do not need Skype. We invite friends to Facebook to stay in touch with them. Without friends on Facebook, you do not need Facebook. We invite friends to use Dropbox to get extra free storage space in return. Also sharing folders perfectly work for growth. These are viral products by nature.
When your viral score is more than one (one customer brings more that one customer on average), you have a viral loop. Viral loop is what opens the door to incredible growth. Customer service is what can shut that door. That is why you should consider customer service in your growth hacking strategy on the early stage.
Satisfied first customers will potentially bring you thousands of new customers. If the viral growth stumbles upon your customer service on the very first step, you may forget about viral growth. A viral loop means that you start with a few customers via live chat systems, and they bring more than one customer each. Speaking of a few customers we literally mean a dozen. If this dozen is not satisfied with your service, they will not bring anyone. If you stumble on the second loop, same result.
When your business grows, you will be focusing on building an efficient self-service system, smooth on-boarding process and everything that will minimize personal service. But on the early stage you do not need all that. You do not need complicated Live chat systems because you do not have time and money for that. Personal customer service and positive customer experience will make the viral loop happen and the growth hacking strategy succeed.
