OPW — Sep 21 — I signed up for eHarmony, Sexsearch, TRUE, Yahoo Personals, American Singles and Match in November 2005. I ran an experiment starting in July 2006. What would happen if I cancelled the card instead of cancelling with the service? Would they cancel the service automatically, email me for my new card number, or transfer the charges to the new card. Here's the results three months later.
American Singles – cancelled, no more charges
eHarmony – cancelled, no more charges
Match – cancelled, no more charges
Sexsearch – cancelled, no more charges
TRUE – cancelled, no more charges
Yahoo Personals – carried on charging the new card
(Yahoo also continued charging for Overture. Google Adwords cancelled out)
I called in to Yahoo Personals to see how lenient their refund policy was. They cancelled the membership but were rigid on their refund policy, despite the card number change. August and September charges were not refunded. Interesting. So, how lenient should your membership refund policy be?
Membership to my little Silicon Valley social club, Ace Club, is $19.95 a month with a 90 day no quibble money back guarantee. 1 in 200 takes me up on refund within the 90 day period. Short refund policies and long refund policies work best. So, 3 to 7 day trials and 90 day money back guarantees. The people who request refunds within the 90 day period should provide you with good feedback/service improvement information for your service. If they're not happy, you need to know why. A 90 day money back guarantee will open up that feedback channel. Listen intently. The keys to the future profitability of your internet dating service are within that feedback.
I've heard some internet dating services have considered going free. No need. Just try a 90 day refund policy. Your conversion numbers will be favorable. Your long term return rates will be favorable. Just find a way to track them. See what happens 😉 Your comments please. – Mark Brooks
A refund policy for the Ace Social Club would generate vastly different results than on a dating website.
I’m the absolute standard case of why subscription dating is going out the door. I had anti-fraud protection, IP blocking and more and still I received a high amount of chargebacks. I was refunding suspicious purchases – doing all I can – but still coudn’t combat it. I ended up getting banned from 2 different CC providers. Trying to sign up for more just drew more problems. More and more CC providers are blacklisting dating sites. This is an industry wide problem.
This doesn’t matter for match, yahoo, eharmony etc. They have massive resources and arrangements with the banks directly.
What’s the average small dating site with 1000-2000 subscribers to do?
So I decided to go free. Why? Under my subscription model I wasn’t growing. My revenues were actually declining. Chargebacks increasing. Adwords CPC’s going up like crazy, increased competition, it seemed like worthless effort.
I turn the site free and my traffic has tripled, I turned off Adwords and am getting more registrations than I did when I had Adwords – via word of mouth and viral.
Adsense is bringing in good income to more than cover costs, and now the site is actually growing like I always hoped it would.
As long as I can keep up with the infrastructure side of things and keeping the site fast and stable, the site now has a much brighter future.
Making dating sites free is a slippery slope. If your dating site is free you can kiss your affiliate traffic goodbye. Without a credit card how can you verify age or be sure the users don’t open dozens of profiles dragging down the quality of your dating base. Try charging less or going with a different billing provider. Free dating sites are not the answer.
All dating sites have free trials and the potential for duplicate profiles. On our site we remove duplicates, but most are found when members write us and tell us because two profiles pop up in the search results that are nearly identical.
As far as credit cards, we have NEVER done the automated monthly billing and don’t feel that is a Christian practice the way most sites implement it.
It is in small print and if the customer does realize they’ve been being charged monthly for a service they haven’t used in months, most site owners won’t refund their money even though it is evident this person hasn’t logged in for months. We hear this complaint from members all the time about other sites.
Sure, we miss out on a lot of revenue, because we’ve been told by our competitor’s that 90% of their income is a result of automatic billing.
I think if it is implemented it should be an optional checkbox, that is NOT checked by default, and only when the person checks it. Members should also be given a 15 day notice before the next billing and an easy way of cancelling it.
On our site, we send out a 15 day notice and a 7 day notice before expiration, and invite the member back to the site to renew it again, or to simply reply to the email and we will renew it for them. Either way it is convenient for them and it allows them to think about it and make the decision on their own without having an unwanted charge forced on them.
As far as our refund policy, we provide a 14 day trial and encourage members to use that before making payment, run the searches, send free online mails, see if there’s anyone of interest that they wish to exchange offline contact with (the reason for payment), and then make a payment based on finding someone of interest. If they cancel within 3 days, we have a 100% refund policy (and have been known to refund 100% beyond that time as well). After 3 days we indicate that the refund is based on subtracting the amount for the number of days used and a processing fee. We rarely get cancellations but when we do, we tend to be generous. I’d rather refund 100% than to have a chargeback. We probably get one chargeback every 3 months because we try very hard to ensure the customer is only paying for what they need and want and only when THEY say charge it! (And those chargebacks are typically people who just didn’t recognize our name on the statement, it is under Shining Star Services.)
God bless,
Nannette Thacker
http://www.ChristianSinglesDating.com
i’m a customer, and the automatic billing thing always bothered me. thanks, nannette for making sure that at least on your site this is not a problem!
i was disappointed with meetic.com, since i became a meember.. i cant even open my messages sent to me by other meetic member. its true that u have free membership and 1 min. is enough to fill the application but when i u start using it.. i found that meetic.com is not friendly user. how can we meet persons if we the member have not credit cards.?
Im not sure if a free dating site works so well? Surely people would be looking for a higher class of date?
So, if your a fish and chips girls who likes a bottle of cider in front of the telly Ill see you on the free site.
If your a girl who works hard (plays hard) and likes a glass of wine in a nice bar then your on the paid for dating site?
It may not be true but these are the images that come to mind.
I dont want a bargain basement woman (even if I am a bargain basement man) and I guess the women feel the same as me.
To convert those to a dating site who wouldnt normally sign up surely your going to offer them a dream? NOT Pie, chips, cider and a fumble down a back alley 😉