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Archive for March 2010

Customer Support Team Update w/c 29th March

Monday, March 29th, 2010

As we are nearing the end of March, we have taken the time to reflect upon the month that we have had. It really has been a busy one and has gone by in a flash. The last of our new features this month was the launch of the ‘Ice Breaker’ facility. This new feature allows all members, once they have uploaded a photo, to introduce themselves to hundreds of members by composing one message. This is a great way to reach a large number of members and to make some immediate connections. This is especially beneficial to our basic members who are not sure whether to upgrade their accounts or not. By using the ‘Ice breaker’ facility, we are not only encouraging members to upload a photo which has shown to improve success rates, but are also giving them a chance to sell themselves before committing to a payment. They can then gage the response they receive back which can be the final push they need to upgrade their account. The moderating team have been kept busy as they are now approving all ice breakers too.

This month has seen a number of significant changes and has solely been about driving customer satisfaction by making the sites as user friendly as possible. We have seen a rise in customer satisfaction and a promising decline in complaints. Needless to say that this is just the beginning and there is plenty more to come from the support team throughout the year.

As always thanks so much for reading and have a brilliant week!

Member Query of the week

With the Ice Breaking facility proving to be such a huge success, we have been on hand to answer all of the many queries. The most frequent query has been ‘what type of thing should I write in my message if it’s reaching so many people’. Well the answer is simple really, just be yourself! We want our members to have fun on the site and enjoy meeting new people. Therefore, their messages should reflect this by being as fun and friendly as possible. Just a few lines to introduce yourself, and maybe write a little about what you are looking for is perfect. Basically whatever feels comfortable and natural, just as though you were talking to someone you had just met in a bar or through a friend. All we ask is that they keep it clean and do not include any personal details. We think our members are really enjoying this new feature and appreciate all the help we are giving them.

Customer Satisfaction Rate

99.2%!

Good Feedback

We are proud of our work and of our members too! This is reflected in our good feedback every week…

Sharon on Plenty More Fish UK

“This is just to let you know that I have already met someone within 4 days of being on your website, and would like to hide my profile now, as we will be meeting again. I cannot thank you enough as without being on here I would not have met such a lovely man. I am thrilled to bits. I came on here purely on impulse, and it has worked. I am so happy!! Thanks again. Sharon”

Ben

I wish the members on here were as open and well spoken as the support team. I’d have no problem getting to know people then. I guess between me and the support team, we have convidence talking to people. When I go to a shop in town, If I buy something and the girl is pretty behind the counter, I allways almost ask her out, as she has a good nature, and she comments on what I’m buying, it really makes me feel good. I’m shy though, and the time between us is far to short. Well, I hope I can meet someone on here as open as the support team, who makes an effort to respond and reasure.

Yay for the good ol support team.:P Thank you. Ben. (:

Temporary Issue With Re-Bill Payments

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Following an issue with our payment provider, we regret to inform you that no re-bill payments have been processed since 3pm on Sunday 28th March. Our provider, Sage Pay, are currently experience difficulties and we are in constant contact with them to get these payments processed as soon as the system is up and running again.

We would like to confirm that no revenue will be lost as an impact of this issue, however it may skew revenue figures slightly as all payments over this period will be collected as soon as the system is processing as normal again. We will keep you up to date with developments on our blog and on our Twitter development account, but in the meanwhile, should you have any questions, please feel free to speak to your Partner Account Manager.

UPDATE: We have been advised by Sage Pay that the issue should be resolved by 8pm this evening. Therefore, we will be running a payment collection in the morning. We apologise for any inconvenience experienced.

UPDATED UPDATE: All re-bills have now been processed and should be presented as part of your revenue figures for today. Again, we’re sincerely sorry for any inconvenience that this caused to you.

Customer Support Team Update w/c 22nd March

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Its been a manic couple of weeks in Support what with all of the improvements and new features rolling out over the sites. However, with all of the excitement of recent changes having died down (for now at least), last week was fairly smooth running. This gave us the chance to put all of our efforts into providing the highest level of customer care possible. Having that little bit of extra time to spend on the phone to a member, or being able to write a more detailed response, is the difference between offering support and offering excellent Customer Care. We want our members to know that they can always pick up the phone and talk to a ‘friendly human’, seeing us more like friends as opposed to a ‘faceless’ organisation.

There was a new, yet familiar, face in Support last week as our Finance Director Darren took part in an ‘experience’ day. This is something that everyone in the company with be partaking in at some point throughout the year, and is an excellent opportunity for them to have first hand experience in dealing with our members. We were all really excited to have the chance to teach Darren what we do on a daily basis, and to show him the ropes. He was the perfect student, taking notes and all in all picking things up very quickly. However, he did manage to sneak out of picking up the phone (we think he was nervous), and let’s just say we don’t think he will be giving up his day job!

Thank you for reading, until next time we hope you have a fabulous week!

Member Query of the week

Our most popular query this week was on the subject of gifts! Now as this is a topic that we have covered a couple of times already, we thought we would cover a slightly different question to ‘how do these work’. What with it being St.Patricks day last week, we got into the spirit of things by giving our members the option of sending themed gifts. St.Patricks day is great fun no matter what your background is, and gifts are a great way to break the ice. What a brilliant combination! The limited edition gifts we offered on all sites came in the form of a refreshing pint of Guniess, a lucky shamrock, and a comical green hat.

Our members often ask ‘If I send someone a gift, will other people be able to see it’. We reassure our members that in the same way that messages are kept private, gifts are also exclusive between the sender and the recipient.  Therefore, you can send the gift along with a message and this will not appear on the recipients profile or display to other members in any way. The only thing left to say to our members was ‘May the luck of the Irish be with you!’.

Satisfaction Rate

98.7%

Feedback

The feedback from our members is brilliant, very reassuring and is totally in line with how eficient and organised our Customer Care is. Below are just two examples of the fantastic messages we have received this week.

Jenny on Crush.co.uk

“Thanks to your site, ive been lucky enough to find the man of my dreams…..I was only on it for a few days before finding him. We have since met up, after only speaking online for 2 days!! Sometimes, you just know! I have a months subscription, but i am cancelling it, as i no longer need it, so many thanks.”

Sharon on Plenty More Fish UK

“This is just to let you know that I have already met someone within 4 days of being on your website, and would like to hide my profile now, as we will be meeting again. I cannot thank you enough as without being on here I would not have met such a lovely man. I am thrilled to bits. I came on here purely on impulse, and it has worked. I am so happy!! Thanks again. Sharon”

Improved Regional Targeting

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Our fabulous development team have been hard at work making even more improvements to the ever growing White Label Dating platform.

The team has recently changed your Latest Members API which allows you to pull members from specific regions. It means your targeting can be much more specific when doing regional featured members.

There are many advantages to this new update, and we would highly recommend getting in touch with your partner manager if you are running regional landing pages. They have a world of knowledge at their finger tips!

Introducing Icebreakers

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

As part of our continued effort to improve our platform and the revenue from your site(s), we are working on a schedule of developments to maximise the returns that you see. Most recently, we have invested considerable resources into the introduction of Icebreakers, which we are glad to announce have now launched.

Everybody knows that sending the first communication on a dating site can be the most daunting - which is why we’re making it free.The introduction of Icebreakers means that members are able to write a message introducing themselves and what they’re looking for and send to hundreds of members determined by age and location. This is all done with one simple click of a button.

Not only does this lower the barrier for entry, it encourages basic members to upgrade to respond with email, which we believe will see an improvement in conversions across the sites.One of the biggest benefits is that it also encourages a better quality of members in the database as in order to be able to send an Icebreaker the members are required to have a full profile and moderated profile picture.

Initially, this is being rolled out across the General network and to women on the Adult network. This is to encourage more women to engage in communication with men on the site, which we know gets more of them paying! We will continue to review the performance across the Adult network before deciding whether to introduce to male members in the future. Whilst the Icebreakers are still in their infancy, initial results are very encouraging with an uplift in both initial and reinitial revenues. We expect to see these results continue as members are encouraged to use this facility as part of our continued communication programme. This programme has already begun with members having been informed of the additional feature. 

This is a great new feature which helps your site stand out from the competition and we would encourage you to build this into your online marketing campaigns moving forwards. If you have any questions or wish to discuss the effect this new development could have on your site and your members feel free to give your Partner Account Manger a call and they will be happy to help. We look forward to seeing the exciting and profitable results.

Customer Support Team Update w/c 15th March

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Well the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster ride for all in Support. As you know we have recently reviewed the functionality of our sites from a member’s perspective, and we have been driving customer satisfaction more than ever. With all of the improvements and new features that we have been rolling out over the sites and behind the scenes, it is safe to say that we have all worked our socks off! Last week we began to moderate all first messages on the site. This means that all new members to join the site and upgrade their account, will now have their very first message screened. This will be another really important way of tracking down scammers as often, they will not seem suspicious until they start to send messages. However, we can now catch those scammers that have been sly enough to make it through profile and photo checks, and remove them at this stage in the moderating process.

The moderating team are doing really well and are still averaging at a four hour approval time on all profiles, diaries, photos and messages. They are showing great potential and are all going that extra mile to ensure that all content on the site meets our regulations. As this team grows, we will be sure to introduce you to each new moderator, as we want you to know exactly who is looking after our members.

As always thank you for reading. We will be back same time, same place next week. We all hope you have a brilliant week!

Member Query of the week

With success rates proving to be highly dependant on having a photo on your profile, our most popular query this week has been ‘What type of photo will get me the best response’. We advise all members that their photo should be a clear portrait shot of themself. This is the perfect default photo to have on your profile, as members can see exactly what you look like, as opposed to a distant shot where your face can just about be made out. Photos with friends or in a large crowd are also a no no. Having a photo with a lot of people in can be of just as much use as not have a photo at all. The reason for this being that members looking at the photo may not know which one you are or even worse, you may have a better looking friend! Therefore, your default photo should be all about you because lets face it, you’re the one looking for a date. All pictures should be up to date and should be taken as recently as possible. Imagine going on a date, only to find that the person you thought you were meeting is actually 10 years older…Not ideal!

The only thing that we ask is that the photo is of an appropriate nature for the site and does not include any animals or children. After all, people are not going to want to date your pet cat are they? We also allow our full members to upload up to ten photos. This is a brilliant way to show members more about yourself, what you get up to and your hobbies or interests. These photos can be updated regularly to show as much variety as possible and to keep the profile exciting.

Satisfaction Rate

98.4%

Good Feedback

We’d like to thank all of our members who come back to us with their fabulous feedback! Here’s just a couple of the success stories we have received this week!

Brian on Plenty More Fish UK

“Hi, Thank’s for all your help over the last couple of months, I have now meet someone through your site and would ask you not to automatically renew my membership when it becomes due again in July 10. Please acknowledge receipt this e-mail. Regards Brian”

Denise on Love and Adore UK

“Hi, I had a wink from rikki on his birthday 1st october then i winked back we then exchanged e mails and met 2 weeks later. we met in a local pub and had a lovely meal and a chat, he was a perfect gentleman and on leaving the evening he gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers.
After this meeting we met several times and within a few weeks i knew he was the man for me. We fell in love almost immediately i can honestly say i have never experienced love like this its great and we are both extreamly happy after going through previous bad experiences.
We are hoping to marry later this year or next. I thank your dating site for this and hope many more people have the same or similar luck. if you would like a photo please let me know and where to send it.”

Customer Support Team Update w/c 8th March 2010

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Well Spring is most definitely in the air and it sure feels good doesn’t it? With everyone in good spirits and what with Spring being the season of new beginnings, we are confident that love is going to blossom for many of our members.

Last week we bought you the news about our new and improved moderation system and we let you know how we were getting on. Well we are happy to report that things are going from strength to strength and we honestly can’t remember life without it! If you have been keeping up to date with the latest White Label Dating news you will have seen the brilliant feedback we received from one of our members last week. This is really encouraging and just goes to show how all of our hard work has payed off in such a short space of time.

Once again we have seen a dramatic decrease in reported members, and have also noticed a considerable drop in the amount of queries on this issue. However, due to moderation being such an important job, we have had to take on extra hands! So we are pleased to announce that we now have a shiny new moderation team. This team will be solely dedicated to approving all profiles, diaries, and photos, whilst at the same time becoming experts in hunting down those scammers. This will also enable us in Support to focus all of our attention on our genuine members, ensuring that everyone leaves feeling happy.

Well that’s about it from us for now! We will bring you more on the new moderation team and how they are getting on next time. Thanks for reading and we hope you have a brilliant week!

Member Query of the week

We have recently introduce a ‘Filtering’ feature on the site to cater for members who receive a large volume of messages. This enables our more popular members to select who they receive messages from based on their own preferences. For example, members can now choose to set filters so they only receive messages from a certain age group, from members with or without a photo, and from members living within a specific distance. This feature is fantastic for members who would normally be inundated with messages, as they can now rest assured in the knowledge that the messages they do receive, will be from members that comply with their set preferences.

As our members get to grips with this new feature we have had a lot of messages querying ‘what happens if I want to see messages that fall outside of the filter I have set’. In this case there is no need to worry as the filter can be turned off at any point. In order to do this members simply need to go to their message inbox and click on the option ’show filtered messages’. We have assured all members that they can turn this filter on and off at any point depending on what they want to view.

Satisfaction Rate

97.7%

Good Feedback

By far the best thing about our job is receiving messages from members who have found genuine love or friendship on one of our sites. Afterall, this is what we are all about and it is great to see that we have had a helping hand in someones happiness. Below are just two examples of some of the good feed back we have had this week.

Juliet, Dating in Wales

“i just wanted to say a big thank to you guys in dating in wales you are doing a fantastic job and hope you keep it up. i met the love of my life and i cant thank you enough, im so happy.juliet”

Tracey, Dateline

“I have just received your message thank you so much for sorting that out for me, as i was so impressed with the site i probably will join again at a later date, I have made some friends through the site and I am very happy because of it. Thank you once again and i wish you every success with the site. Yours sincerely Tracey Tull”

New Site Improvements Seeing Positive Results

Friday, March 5th, 2010

It seems all our hard work is really starting to pay off on your members. The recent site improvements that have been made across the platform have really been noticed and taken in by your members. Their experiences and journeys with you and your site are becoming more memorable and  for all the right reasons. One member wrote to our lovely support team with this positive message:

Hi,

I just wanted to thank you for recent site improvements. It is a great help to be able to see who has viewed your profile and to be able to search new members. I am also pleased to see that you are vetting profiles before they are published.

This last point has helped to reduce the number of contacts from false profiles. I get a lot of winks from alleged young ladies with their email details in the profile. These are just looking for credit card details and are obviously a scam. I see these characters have now taken to putting their contact details as their name. Can I please suggest that you limit the name field to 20 chars max to stop this happening?

I think this is a great site and I do not want to see it abused by fraudsters. Please keep up the good work.

Colin

It’s lovely to see when hard work pays off. At the end of the day your members are our main priority, we want to keep them as happy as we possibly can, and if this message is anything to go by it seems we are doing just that. :)

Customer Support Team Update w/c 1st March

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Wow is it March already? How time flies when you’re working so hard! Last week was another busy one for all in Support as we welcomed the launch of our new and improved moderation system. This is a really exciting time for all of us here at White Label Dating, as we recognise that the key to our success is to create a safe and relaxed environment for all of our members to enjoy. We have all been really eager to try out the new moderation system and so far so good. Getting rid of scammers has never been so much fun! As well as this we have also been moderating all photos, videos, profile text and diaries as usual, to ensure that we continue to deliver beyond our high standards. Although it’s not been easy, we are already receiving brilliant feedback from the people that count the most, and have noticed a significant decline in our reported members. We are really happy to see that all of our hard work has paid off and that our members are reaping the benefits. All in all it was a brilliant week and we’re sure it will only get better.

Thanks for dropping by, as ever it’s been our pleasure to keep you up to date with the latest news from Support. Until next time, we all hope you have a fantastic week!

Member Query of the Week

As some of you may know, we launched our new and improved Moderation System last week which has so far proven to be a massive success!
We are now ensuring that all profile text is moderated before it goes live to other members on the site which ensures that any inappropriate, in-genuine profiles are caught before they even cross the start line! Not only does this provide a better journey for our members, but it also helps us focus on our customer retention rate which is so important to us. The main member query of last week was:
“How long will it take for my profile text to be approved?”

We inform all members that our average moderating time is just 4 hours – this is a very quick response time and we only expect to improve on this as time goes on :)

Customer Satisfaction Rate

98.9%

Good Feedback

We always look forward to hearing good feedback from our members, this week we have chosen the two below to share with you:

We are pleased that Adrain from lovehorse.co.uk has found his perfect match:

Adrain: Hi,

I have found someone away from this site and so wish to be deleted from the site please.

All the contacts I have had through your site have been very nice people and enjoyable to converse with. I would certainly suggest your site to other people in the future.

Thanks

Another happy customer is Juliet from DatinginWales.com:

Juliet: I just wanted to say a big thank to you guys in dating in wales you are doing a fantastic job and hope you keep it up. I met the love of my life and i cant thank you enough, im so happy. julie

March Newsletter from WhiteLabelDating.com

Monday, March 1st, 2010

February has come and gone in a blink of an eye! The past month has been full of exciting plans and developments and there is much more still to come.

We have been in our new office for a month now and it already feels like home. The office move has proved to be hugely beneficial to all of the teams with communication dramatically improved.

With so much having gone on, there’s lots packed into this month’s newsletter:-

Hr

Partner Workshop Proves Hugely Positive

Last week saw the kick off of the first of our partner workshops. It was a huge success, with everyone coming away with great insight into Social Media and some great ideas for their site’s future.

With such great results coming out of the first workshop, we’re looking forward to rolling out this workshop to more partners later in the year.

Hr

South Africa Join the Online Dating Phenomenon

Inline

South Africa has really jumped onto the online phenomenon that is Internet dating. The uptake has been huge and the growth continues to show. Following research into the market, we’re currently working on the platform to improve the customer experience. We will be announcing more details about this over the next month.

The over 50’s network is doing particularly well over in South Africa at the moment with the network converting at 9.86%. A really high converting South Africa site that sits within this network is SeniorDatingGroup.co.za, the site has really taken off in SA and is converting above the average at 12.42%. This is a great example to check out both in terms of acquisition and retention.

The promising stats don’t stop there, since October 2009 the number of basic members on the over 50’s network has grown on average by 20% and the number of full members has grown 27.91% in the last month alone! Some great figures and more proof that SA is the place to be when it comes to dating.

With the market showing such growth and potential, setting up an international site has never been more appealing.

Your partner manager is there to help you make this happen. They have lots of advice and pointers to help a new launch go as smoothly and successfully as it possibly can. Go on try it, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Hr

Partner Classification

Inline

A select few of our gold partners recently attended an extra special dinner at the all famous Gordon Ramsay Claridge’s restaurant. The dinner was thoroughly enjoyed by the partners who attended. Putting on events such as these gives us a great opportunity to reward those partners who are showing excellent potential and commitment.

Back in October we informed you of your partner classification and as we confirmed at the time, these are renewed every six months and partners are able to move up and down .
A  re-classification has just recently taken place and all partners affected by changes have been contacted.

We make sure we look after all of our partners but there are huge benefits to becoming a gold partner. Some of these benefits include:

* Face-to-face meetings with your Partner Manager once per month
* 3 Bespoke marketing comms per month
* Timed exclusivity on preview new features
* Full technical support
* Strategic development consultation
* Exclusivity period on new market/niches/networks
* Access to partner events
* Tailored marketing support
* Internal PR support access
* Insight workshops

There’s no reason why each and every one of you should not become gold partners and we’re here to support you to get there. If you want any tips or help on improving your site and are interested on working to help move up a classification, your Partner Manager will be more than happy to help you with this.

Hr

What Our Platform Offers You……

You would recently have received an e-mail with new features that are launching soon to the WLD platform. We thought that it would be helpful to go into a bit more detail on a few of the updates you have coming your way in order for you to completely understand what you’re getting from us as a platform provider.

One development that we are really excited about and that will have a huge impact on your site and most importantly your members is the Anti-Scammer Moderation Process.

The reasoning behind the new moderation process is to help wipe out scammers from our systems. Scammers are an industry-wide issue that can lead to member dissatisfaction and therefore a reduction in their lifetime on the site. We want nothing but true honest members on your site and this process will be able to give you just that. The process will be introduced across all sites ensuring 100% member satisfaction.

As part of this new process, we will detect IP addresses and email addresses that have previously been assigned to a scammer and remove them from the system. All photos, videos, profile text and first messages will then be manually moderated by one of our UK based moderation team. All in all a very exciting move and one that will help improve the customer journey of your users.

Another exciting development we have coming soon is Advanced Search Options. Bringing in more advanced searches will enable your members to search for their match based on all profile fields, options and characteristics, for example body shape, occupation, marital status etc.

The improved search results will hugely increase the satisfaction of members and should see an uplift in conversions as basic members can see more individuals that are suitable for them, making them much more willing to sign up to become a full member.

With all the new developments that are taking place at the moment it has never been a better time to be a partner with White Label Dating!

Hr

Until next time…

Inline

As always thanks so much for reading, and remember you can check out our blog for more recent news and events.

Please do drop me a line if you would like to see anything in the next edition, we always love to hear from you. You can reach me at fheath@whitelabeldating.com

Tune in next month for more news and updates.

Kindest Regards

Francesca Heath

fheath@whitelabeldating.com

WhiteLabelDating.com