How To Stop Your Customers From Leaving?

When building out a new marketplace product, there's always one question that crops up during product strategy that can threaten growth.

What's stopping providers from axing out the marketplace (your product) after the first transaction?

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Ex:

In recent times, I've travelled between Islamabad and Lahore on Careem quite a bit.

Without fail, the driver would hand me a business card or phone number at the end of the trip asking me to call him directly if I was heading the other way anytime soon.

I saw some of this in the early days of Zomato as well when restaurants would ask me to call their delivery number directly for future orders.

The challenge snowballs when the provider labels the marketplace as "evil" when interacting with consumers the first time. Less savvy customers will associate that negativity with your brand.

On the consumer side, you can offset this by education. Highlight security when dealing via your platform and risks of bypassing it (e.g. Lack of customer service).

On the provider side, it's best to start with the root cause. Their allegations or grievances may have some truth that you might need to first address or clarify. Why do they want to circumvent you?

However, if it happens to be an attempt to "game" the system, think about "carrots" first before "sticks".

How? Educate them with outcomes.

1. Functional outcomes

What tangible benefits will they get with more usage of your platform?

Ex: upgrade tiers that take away smaller commission rates from their jobs, preference when assigning high-value jobs (e.g. a longer ride, more visibility to users with a history of high cart value), priority support.

2. Emotional outcomes

How can you make them feel special?

Send unexpected virtual or physical gifts, cover their phone cost for a month, take care of a monthly maintenance, give them some software for free, offer them trainings, help them with a loan etc.

3. Social outcomes

How can you make them look good to people that matter?

Provider of the week programs, thank you notes to their parents/family highlighting what an asset the provider is, giving them exposure on video marketing or social accounts etc.

Of course, these suggestions won't deter everyone. You'll still have bad eggs. But it might help with the significant majority.

Providers are key to a marketplace and getting them out of the mindset of constantly scheming how to oust you is essential.