What if your customers did the job they could? You – answering each other’s questions about your product, developing suggestions for improvement, and encouraging each other to make better use of your services? This, according to Savash Mahmudian, Co-Founder and CEO of Tribe, is a promise made by the consumer community that his company will help build its customers.
“The most successful companies are the ones that create a sense of belonging in their customers,” said Mahmudian, who today said Tribe raised $7.5 million to fund the seed. “You want your customers to be seen as part of something bigger.”
Customer communities – or social networks revolving around businesses – are a way to achieve this goal, Mahmudian said. Therefore, Tribe provides a platform where companies can build this community. In addition, Codeless software services allow customers to launch their personalized social network for enterprises quickly but require little or no IT technical skills. “The goal is that even customers with no programming knowledge can create their own Facebook, Linked In, or Slack in no time,” explains Mahmoudian.
The attraction is quite significant. Customers who reach out to each other for problem solutions or ideas to achieve their goals will get faster and better answers than waiting for the company to act independently. Product managers get constant feedback on what customers think of the company and what improvements they would like to see. And this community-generated user-generated content drives acquisitions, with search engines like Google increasingly appreciating that content.
This is a valuable offering that has resonated with customers since Tribe launched in 2019. As a result, the number of subscribers is growing 400% annually, with about 300 new communities being created on the Tribe platform every day – around 80,000 such networks worldwide now rely on its tools.
Traditional social networks offer some competition, Mahmoudian admits, with services such as Facebook group pages, which allow companies to operate particular areas for their customers on their networks. However, Tribe believes that a service designed specifically for businesses to create these spaces for themselves will prevail over the giant offerings that are more generic and cover a wide range of different uses.