INTERNET DATING SCIENCE – Aug 31 – These two reports, one each from eHarmony and Match.com, cover findings from their surveys.
eHarmony estimates that 4.77% of all new marriages in the US between 1/1/2008 and 6/30/2009 resulted from people who met on eHarmony. 542 eHarmony members marry every day, on average. These figures have doubled since 2007.
17% of couples marrying in the last three years met on an Internet dating site according to Match.com study. More than twice as many couples met on a dating site than those who met in bars, clubs or other social events. (Friends or family: 27%; Work/school: 38%; Church: 4%).
These two studies only present findings that enhance their own product. For marketing purposes, this is an excellent strategy: collect data that presents your service in the best possible light.
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 30 – Integrity ID is a membership association for people committed to integrity and honesty. We thought this was worthy of further investigation and an interview. – Mark Brooks
What is your founding story? A couple of years ago I talked to a female friend who was in early 40’s, single, and was having a very difficult time finding quality men. She heard ‘horror’ stories about online dating. That began a process of a lot of research, talking to women about what they were concerned about in online dating and finding a way that could allow people to see that they are safe. That idea of screen in vs. screen out, how to find the good people is the origin of Integrity ID and that led to lots of research and a business model which is very unique.
How unique? What are you doing differently? Several things. We're not an online dating company or a background checking company. Our members voluntarily make a commitment to integrity and honesty and undergo rigorous background checks so that other people can see that they are safe and then they can identify themselves through their membership number. Other people can easily find out if they are a member of Integrity ID by verify them at integrityid.com.
We 'screen in' vs. 'screen out.' We are not trying to identify the bad people. We are trying to allow the quality people to get seen and noticed and get credibility for that.We have a very high quality screen. We use the same type of FCRA quality screen that would be used for employment. We are providing a screen on behalf of those who have concerns on safety and would be interested in engaging with other members.
How would somebody report someone who stated they were married, but were in fact not? When you become an Integrity ID member you self report your marital status. If we receive a credible report that a person has lied then we will contact them, ask for an explanation and we reserve the right to disqualify their membership based on the fact that there is evidence that they lied about their marital status.
How often do you run the background checks? We have an initial background screen, when people join, and then we have an algorithm that we developed with our background check service provider to randomly check others through the course of their membership. So people know they’ll be checked initially and that they can be checked at anytime.
What kind of checks do you offer? I imagine there is the basic sex offender check as a basic one, but how involved do you get with the checks? It’s actually a very extensive check. We create a screen that members must pass through. That includes the pledge of integrity, honesty and respect of others. A rigorous background screen and ongoing membership qualification and submission through additional background checks. Any felonies are a disqualifier for membership. In addition to felonies are misdemeanors that involve violence, fraud, sex offences or drug crimes which would be ground for disqualification or non-qualification for membership.
My understanding of background checks is that the magical piece of information to have is social security number. Do you collect the social security numbers? We have a preferred vendor. You submit your social security number to them and it’s securely stored there. We never see it. There’s a very high level of security.
How much does it cost? We charge a onetime application fee of $39.99 and offer memberships for 6, 12 and 24 months. The 24 months membership would be least expensive $199.99, a little over $8 a month. If you want to verify I’m a member it costs nothing’. You pay to join like joining a club.
THIS IS MONEY – Aug 30 – Cupid Plc, whose websites include Flirt, Be Naughty and GirlsDateforFree, has moved into markets such as Brazil, Germany and Italy and nearly tripled revenues to GBP 25.4M. UK revenues increased by 68% to GBP 11.9M, but the rapid growth overseas means these markets now account for 53% of its revenues, compared to 19% a year ago.
OPW – Aug 30 – Have you seen the POF paid membership? See the image for the pay screen. The site is still free. People who want more services can pay $7 (annual commitment) to $12 (quarterly) a month, and get
– improved visibility and placement
– better matches
– seeing if their emails have been read or deleted
OPW – Aug 29 – Procall (client of Courtland Brooks) knows Internet dating and can help you offshore your customer service center. We interviewed Jim Rush, COO of Procall, to provide some background and expertise on outsourcing and what questions you should ask, if you're considering outsourcing.
Can you give us a brief introduction about yourself and your role with Procall? I was in the U.S. Navy as a section leader for a cryptologic intelligence unit. I learned to join teams together to process tasks in a project oriented environment. Later on, during my five year tenure at Dell, my role as a global project leader was to lead initiatives in the Americas, Europe, Japan and India regions. I was in charge of operations and process improvements for departments such as tech support, enterprise servers and HR. I also worked closely with outsourcing partners such as eTelecare, ClientLogic, and Sitel. My role with Procall as COO culminates much of my past experience in these fields. Today I review our daily operational goals and oversee process implementation for our various clients and projects. I work with a team of executive staff members to drive our business directives and streamline our operations to surpass our shared goals with our clients.
What is the background of Procall and how long has the company been in the outsourcing business? Procall has been in the call center outsourcing space since 1997. We were one of the first outsourcers to work with the nearshore model. This term means the Latin America and Caribbean areas. Our first international center opened in Costa Rica in 1997 and due to that amazing agent pool that we had there and the infrastructure, we opened our Dominican Republic operation in Santo Domingo in 2003. We continued our expansion in 2007 to include Panama and the Philippines. In early 2009 we opened our centers in Columbia and Guyana. Today, we're one of the largest call center networks in the region.
Are you working with internet dating clients at the moment? Yes. We provide customer service, billing, help desk and retention support to over twenty internet dating sites currently. Part of that service is complete email, chat, voice support, in addition to profile reviews, photo, video and blog reviews as well.
So how many centers do you have? And what are the hours of operation? We currently have eight call centers located in the U.S., Central and South America and in Asia. We have slightly over 3000 call center reps. Our Panama center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Most of our other center provide 8am to midnight Eastern U.S. coverage which is seven days a week as well.
What languages do you support? We definitely are global at this point. We support English, Spanish, Portuguese – both European and Brazilian, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Japanese, Korean and other languages. Twelve.
So just in terms of platforms and tools that you have in place to service your accounts, can you outline some of those? Sure. I think we have a total solution. This includes an e-learning solution, a workforce management system as well, various call management systems. I'll name a few, Phone Fusion, Five9, Touchstar and Genesis. We have a CRM and quality monitoring solutions as well.
Can you outline your base client size that you have right now? Our voice-only customer service programs are quite large. They typically average 100-200 agents. The internet dating programs are generally smaller in nature and run roughly 30-40 reps on average. However, Procall has serviced clients with smaller requirements with 10-15 reps as well.
So if an internet dating company is considering outsourcing some or all of their customer service requirements, what should they really look for? What are the benefits? Outsourcing allows the client to focus on running their website while leaving the outsource provider, us, to manage day to day customer support. Outsourcing provides different types of cost effectiveness in the form of employee salaries, other overhead costs such as real estate, internet and communication rates, vacation, insurance, you name it. Agents in outsource countries typically view jobs in call centers as a career. This leads to a very professional environment and with less attrition.
So what should an internet dating firm consider or look for if they are looking for a provider such as yourself? Main questions that come to mind are: how long have they been in the business? Do they have experience currently with other dating sites? You don't want them to muddle through the process. What type of support do they provide? What requirements does the firm need to fulfill? Is the provider familiar with balancing queues and service levels, email, reviews, calls, etc. all at the same time? Do they know how to prioritize all of these? For these very reasons, the internet dating community actually has been our most complicated model and has taught us a very valuable experience in operations.
If anybody has any questions and would like to contact Procall, what's the best way? They can visit our website at procall.com, and they can directly contact Al, our CMO at al@procall.com, 561-416-2020.
OPW – Aug 29 – Experian Hitwise online dating rankings are in for July 2011. PlentyofFish.com is #1 with over 20% of market share, followed by Match.com with ~9% of market share. SpeedDate.com is #3 (~6% of market share), Zoosk is #4, followed by Adam4Adam, SeniorPeopleMeet and DateHookup. Check out the international online dating rankings as well.
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Aug 29 – Scientific theories say we are attracted to people with similar facial features to our own. FindYourFacemate.com uses sophisticated facial recognition software to pair off members with a partner who is 'facially compatible' to them. Founder Christina Bloom started investigating the theory 20 years ago when she married a man who looked very similar to her. After launching 3 months ago the site already has ~25K members.
MARKETWIRE – Aug 29 - Among notable changes in July were drops in unique visitors to daily deal sites and soaring number of unique visitors hitting social networks. Groupon.com experienced an 8.9% drop to 30.6M unique visitors. Traffic also fell for Livingsocial.com, down 28% to 10.6M uniques. Facebook.com and Twitter.com both grew ~2.4% month-over-month (MOM), with Facebook increasing 17% YOY for a total of 149.8M uniquess and Twitter rising 12% YOY for a total of 32.4M uniques. Match.com attracted 16.1M unique visitors during July, a 19% increase MOM and 39 % rise YOY. Speeddate.com continued to demonstrate enviable growth in July, with a monthly increase of 34% and a lift of 669 % YOY.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK – Aug 28 – MySingleFriend, an online dating website founded by the television presenter Sarah Beeny, has been put up for sale for up to £15M. First-round bids of between £10M and £15M were submitted earlier this month, primarily by rival online dating businesses, but some private equity firms are also interested. The site is unique in that subscribers must nominate a friend who will write a description of them – which, unlike other dating sites, means that a user's profile features both their own words and those of their friend. My Single Friend attracts 9K new singles a month from across the UK. It is on track to make underlying profits of about £1.5M this year.
HERALD.IE – Aug 27 - TheUglyBugBall.com (TUBB), was launched in Ireland a year ago, and it already counts 9K subscribers in the Republic. TheUglyBugBall.com originally launched in the UK where it has 140K members. "The reality is that most of the people aren't really ugly, but it would never have really taken off if we had called it Average Person Dating Co", a TUBB spokesperson said.
INTERNET DATING SCIENCE – Aug 31 – These two reports, one each from eHarmony and Match.com, cover findings from their surveys.
