There is a business opportunity here IMHO for success for a player with much better aligned incentive structure with their users. (I perceive there's plenty of money in the market however much a monopoly it tends to be now.)
Vanguard did/does this with mutual funds for example and grew to be the biggest player (while still leaving plenty on the table for others) in the market. You just have to make it part of your core business model and marketing strategy and stick with it long enough to see success.
Here's my stab at how to align incentives for dating sites, both the business, the customer, the employees and the stockholders. Commit to the following type of pricing model and market the heck out of you wanting to see your customer succeed:
Your initial price is $50/month (the going rate IIRC).
After two months it drops to $40/month.
After six months it drops to $35/month.
After a year it drops to $30/month
After two years it drops to $20/month (below or just at or only slightly above your marginal cost-to-serve)
(Vary the dollar values above depending on your economics and behaviors. Maybe you start people at $60/mo, higher than competitors for example but reassure people it will auto-drop for them.)
Then you are incented to get people good matches most at the point at which they are most engaged. If your employees are not striving to get people matches at that point, your business will suffer. If you find yourself with a low-margin business with too many $20/mo customers, your stock valuation will suffer.
Two other pieces of data I would gather when trying to setup my internal metrics:
1) Ask each customer when they signup what their ideal timeline (2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, etc) is to A) meet someone through the site, B) have a steady relationship, and (if applicable) C) get married. Understand the demand/expectations curve and how it intersects with your pricing curve.
2) Offer customers a $20 refund when leaving the service to tell you if they got married, are in a serious relationship, or never got anywhere with your service. Incent the customer to help you measure your success rate and its correlation with their initial expectations, individually and in bulk. Give customers the option of explicitly refusing to get the refund because they are so satisfied, or to give you a tip and use that as a key KPI measuring customer satisfaction.
The above pricing curve also ironically adds stickiness the steeper the price drops are, because people won't want to quit and then resignup later since their price might triple if there's a chance they might get more active again on your site in the next few months. You just don't want your initial price to be too steep to drive too many people off.
Vanguard did/does this with mutual funds for example and grew to be the biggest player (while still leaving plenty on the table for others) in the market. You just have to make it part of your core business model and marketing strategy and stick with it long enough to see success.
Here's my stab at how to align incentives for dating sites, both the business, the customer, the employees and the stockholders. Commit to the following type of pricing model and market the heck out of you wanting to see your customer succeed:
Your initial price is $50/month (the going rate IIRC).
After two months it drops to $40/month.
After six months it drops to $35/month.
After a year it drops to $30/month
After two years it drops to $20/month (below or just at or only slightly above your marginal cost-to-serve)
(Vary the dollar values above depending on your economics and behaviors. Maybe you start people at $60/mo, higher than competitors for example but reassure people it will auto-drop for them.)
Then you are incented to get people good matches most at the point at which they are most engaged. If your employees are not striving to get people matches at that point, your business will suffer. If you find yourself with a low-margin business with too many $20/mo customers, your stock valuation will suffer.
Two other pieces of data I would gather when trying to setup my internal metrics:
1) Ask each customer when they signup what their ideal timeline (2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, etc) is to A) meet someone through the site, B) have a steady relationship, and (if applicable) C) get married. Understand the demand/expectations curve and how it intersects with your pricing curve.
2) Offer customers a $20 refund when leaving the service to tell you if they got married, are in a serious relationship, or never got anywhere with your service. Incent the customer to help you measure your success rate and its correlation with their initial expectations, individually and in bulk. Give customers the option of explicitly refusing to get the refund because they are so satisfied, or to give you a tip and use that as a key KPI measuring customer satisfaction.
The above pricing curve also ironically adds stickiness the steeper the price drops are, because people won't want to quit and then resignup later since their price might triple if there's a chance they might get more active again on your site in the next few months. You just don't want your initial price to be too steep to drive too many people off.