eHarmony Memo
Yu Qiu
Pepperdine University
TO: eHarmony CEO
FROM: Senior Executive at eHarmony
DATE: June 19, 2020
SUBJECT: Strategic Options
Analysis
Considering the situation evident from the case, there is an increased need to make a decision on the way to deal with two key essential things. These include competition threats a well as positioning the company within a long time success. eHarmony is operating and offering many services, and the company is still left with more opening space for improvement. The company has the highest number of subscribers, which is a significant margin putting into consideration that it could be disadvantageous to eHarmony’s revenue. However, it still stands at a better position among other online. In the case of a monthly subscription, a user incurs a cost of $40per month as compared to others that offer such a service at a low price. Therefore, from a revenue point of view, the relatively costly subscription assist the competitors to narrow down their revenue gap with eHarmony.
Apart from the success that eHarmony has been having they have not managed to have complete harmony with all demographics such as the gay and lesbians group. Due to lawsuits for demonstrated discrimination and in order to resolve the issue, eHarmony’s went to a mile of creating a “Compatible Partners,” which is a discrete platform from the one that catered to the gay and lesbian population. The issue of skepticism towards eHarmony scientific algorithms cannot be ignored where a considerable percentage of people have a belief that it’s not scientifically effective to pair two people. Furthermore, the company does not provide or has failed to offer precise details on how the matching is conducted. Finally, the user’s profiles credibility is a key concern where persons have a propensity of making themselves look desirable on their profiles. This makes the issue of matching somehow complicated.
Segmentation strategy
EHarmony is appealing to both old and young persons, but it also targets a precise group of clients. Considering the couples who are showcased in its advertisements, people can infer that its target group is those around the age of 26-35. In oftentimes, the company conducts commercials that include older people, especially couples, however, are drawn from the primary target age group. Additionally, the company seems to focus more on the development of a serious relationship, mainly marriages. Age is a significant factor when considering the segments that eHarmony is working hard to appeal, but even though eHarmony is accessible to many people, it seems to exclude particular groups. EHarmony screens out those people that it does not want to be part of its target group through questionnaires to ensure that those persons with end up not being allowed into the eHarmony community. A good example of these segments of people is gays and lesbians.
Recommendations
There has been an expansion in the company’s market within the last few years to international markets in the republics like the UK, Germany, and Australia. However, almost the same scientific matching criteria being used in each of its new markets. It’s paramount to understand that each nation has its unique cultural aspects and religion; the company must design a certain matching system for every country founded on social variances. For instance, in a market like Germany, eHarmony can try and focus more on particular features when searching for matches. These features can be emphasized in the questionnaire that a customer fills. However, this approach must be tactical because it’s expensive and time-consuming, mainly when trying to explore analyze what precisely persons from diverse regions look for and like when finding a relationship match. As part of global expansion, the company can consider working on its popularity among the Asian nations and develop its service to these areas’ geographical parts, if possible, with personalized questions.
The company should also consider introducing new services. That is, it could expand its service and employ counseling professionals to try and guide persons on creating a meaningful and supportable relationship. Furthermore, eHarmony should also consider offering the service for free or through an extra charge provisional on the cost of employing these kind of counseling individuals.
Finally, in this era of Smartphones, Tablets, and Apps, eHarmony must try and consider designing user-friendly navigable apps. Presently, the apps owned by the company have a decent number of download times as well as good reviews. However, there are notable challenges with the software itself. Therefore, eHarmony needs to go on improving its app, considering that its users find it suitable to use, and they will be increasingly affianced with the app and optimistically grow fond of the service even more.
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