Telephone dating has been very popular since the beginning of the 90's and is still today, despite the advent of the Internet, a highly appreciated service. You will find these services in most every large cities and in many instances, several of them.
Starting your Dating Service.
Starting a telephone dating system can be complex, but with our systems and support, the task will be much easier. We have a long experience in the business and are dedicated to help our customers to start and to make a success with their own dating business.
To start your dating service, you will need to choose among different billing models and options as well as providing ways to users to buy time on your system. For instance, you can decide to operate your system using 900 lines only and having everyone pay for the service or, you can choose to allow free access to women and use only one 900 line to sell time while using regular lines for paying and non-paying member access.
The best way to make the right decisions is to have a good idea of your market. You should do a small market research to see which other similar telephone dating services are available in your area and if any how they operate and the cost of access to their service. By knowing your competition, you will be in a better position to take the right decisions and to position your service in the market.
Following is a description of what you will need to do to start your service, grouped by logical steps.
- Decide about your target audience and billing model and options.
- Get the required telephone lines.
- Setup the system
- Edit the system prompts text, submit for revision and record your prompts.
- Test your system.
- Promote and launch your service
One of the first thing you should decide is your system audience target and billing model. That is, who is going to use and to pay for access to your system. The system can be setup to be used for different gender and orientation from the following list:
"Man looking for Woman"
"Woman looking for man"
"Man looking for man"
"Woman looking for Woman"
The default sets "Man looking for Woman" as the first gender / orientation category and "Woman looking for man" as the second.
You must also decide who will pay for access to your system. On many systems, the "woman looking for man" users have a free access while the "Man looking for woman" must pay. You can set the Billing options for each gender in the program configuration. See the setup section for more details.
The next step is to decide how your paying users will get billed. which is detailed in the next section.
Our system support two types of billing methods:and lines.
- Using "Pay per Minute" (900 / 976 etc) lines: The billing is handled by the telephone company.
- Regular lines with User account "By minute" and "Unlimited Access Membership" billing. The program handle the billing.
The type of billing selected will dictate the telephone lines setup that you need. On a typical system, only men will pay for access while women have free access. The choice of a billing method will depend on many factors, among which, the competition, the targeted audience, the number of lines offered etc.
The picture above illustrate the
billing model that our system supports in relation to the line types
used. The leftmost picture show a system using 900 "pay by
minute" lines. Next to it is a system using "pay by minute" lines for
paying user and regular (non paying) lines for non paying
users. The rightmost picture shows a system using all regular non
paying lines and one or (here) two "fixed fee" 900 line to sell time to
users. This model has many advantages for both the owner and the users of the service and this is the model we suggest .
Using 900 lines:
One way to handle the billing, is to use "pay by minute" lines (900 / 976) for all or part of your system lines.
When using 900 lines for paying users, the telephone company will handle all billing issues.
The paying users will dial a 900 number to access the system while the non paying members will call a regular phone number.
When using 900 lines the paying users will be billed for the whole time of the call.
This billing method implies that the number of 900 lines, used for paying user, and "regular" lines, used for non paying users need to be fixed in advance.
Regular lines with 900 line(s) Billing.
The system can also be setup to be used on regular (non paying) lines and, optionally, use a single (or two) "fixed rate" 900 line(s) to sell time to the paying users. (See the rightmost system in the picture above). With this billing method, the user has to buy time by calling the 900 line and entering his account number and password. The given time is put into his account and he is billed a fixed amount, say $15 or $25 for a given amount of minutes / messages or unlimited hours of access to the service. You can also, if wanted, use this billing method without using any 900 lines to sell the time by using the other ways of selling time supported.
- Use less costly (inbound only) regular lines.
- All users, paying and non paying, to call the same lines ... on only one phone number.
- Can use more than one 900 line with different prices.
- You can sell time by other methods. Credit cards, prepaid cards etc
- Can bill "by minute", "By message" or "unlimited membership" access.
Using this method, the program can be configured to bill the user in many different ways:
- Bill by time for the whole call:
- The call is timed and the time spent on the system is subtracted from the user's account at the end of the call.
- Bill by Message. The system can be configured to bill one unit when:
- Receiving a voice mail message
- Sending a voice mail message.
Access to the "Live Section" can be time billed or by message when:
- Receiving a "Live Message".
- Sending a Live Message.
One to one conferencing is always billed by time.
"Unlimited Membership" Billing.
- This billing method allows for an unlimited access for a given time. The user buys a given number of hour / days of time which allows for an unlimited access to the system until the end of the membership. The user can spend as much time he wants on the service with no limits on the number of message sent or received. You could sell unlimited membership for one or two days, one week or even one month.
Mixed Billing
The "By Minute" and/or "Unlimited Membership" billing methods can be used together on a same system to accommodate the casual and heavy users, although using both billing method may add some complexity for the user and the management of the system.
| Method / Pros & Cons | Pros | Cons |
| 900 Lines | - No billing / Time selling to handle. | - Need
fixed number of 900 lines
for paying users and Free
lines for non paying users. - More expensive to operate. - More expensive to the users |
| By Minutes | -
Use Regular lines - Less expensive than 900 billing - Many ways to sell time. - Good for casual users | -
Must handle Time Selling &
Billing - Cheaper to operate - More expensive for heavy users |
| Unlimited Membership | -
Use Regular lines - Less expensive than 900 billing - Many ways to sell time. - Good for heavy users | -
Must handle Time Selling &
Billing - Cheaper to operate - More expensive for casual users. |
When using "By Minutes" and "Unlimited Membership" billing, you will need to provide the users with
as many as possible ways of buying time to access your system. Here are the supported time selling methods.
900 Line:
The system can be setup to use one or two 900 lines that are used to sell time to paying users.
Other lines are a group of "cascaded" regular lines used by paying and non-paying users.
To buy time the user call the 900 line number where he is asked to enter his account number and password.
The 900 lines must be configured to bill a fixed amount per call, say 15 or 25 dollars and
a corresponding amount of units is added to the users' account. The user then call the regular line to use the service.
Credit Card:
Credit card sale can be handled in two ways.
- By telephone : Users call the management at the given customer service number and the manager handle the order and authorization and then call the system manager menu to add the time to the user's account. The manager can also offer the customer to have it's credit card number and expiration entered in the system so he can makes unattended purchase on the system. (see below)
- On the system:
The system can be configured to handle on line credit card purchases.
A user can have it's credit card number entered into it's account in order to be able to buy time on line.
The card number is validated and entered into the user's account by the management on the first purchase.
The system can also accept first time buyers by doing a minimal credit card number validity check.
All credit card purchases must be validated by the management using the remote management access menu or the program's validation options from the main menu.
There is no provision to automatically get an authorization for credit card purchases. This must be done by the manager.
If you have a merchant account and that your company offers a remote authorization service, we may integrate the automated validation into the program as an option.
Prepaid Cards:
The system manager can create accounts that will be reserved for "prepaid cards".
These prepaid cards with account number and password can be sold through retails outlets.
To use the prepaid accounts the user simply call the system and enter the given account number
and password. You can create prepaid accounts with different numbers of units and prices.
The lines used by the system are regular analog lines. You will need to have your lines grouped under a single phone number. The lines will not be making outside calls, so you can ask for "Inbound only" lines which should be less expensive. Mostly all telephone company will be able to provide these types of lines but the cost may vary quite a bit between telephone service provider so it is recommended to "shop around" before selecting your provider.
"Pay by minute" and "Fixed fee" lines:
if using one or two "fixed fee" paying line to sell time, these must have the caller ID service enabled. This will be used by the system to identify the caller, in order to avoid multiple calls and to prevent fraud.
Most service providers who offer "pay by minutes" or "fixed fee" lines (900, 976 etc) will require that you sign up an agreement with them and will ask you to comply with their regulation. Contact your chosen service provider for more details.
One of the most important aspect to successfully starting your dating business is to make a good promotional campaign. Since you audience will mostly be localized around a telephone area code, the most effective media is probably local newspapers, but radio and even television can also be used efficiently in some areas. Look for partnership with newspapers or radio stations, this can be an extremely effective way to promote your service.
In most situations when launching your service, your database of users will be empty . In consequence you will want to attract as many users as possible so that the activity builds up in the live section and that users' presentation messages are added to the classified section. The best strategy to reach these goals is to offer free access to the users for a limited time. Our system will allow you to do this using either one or two methods:
- Give a free amount of time to all new (paying) users who get their presentation message validated.
With this method, each validated new user gets a (manager's defined) fixed amount of free time to try the system. The user is then billed normally until the time expires, the user must then purchase time to resume using the service. The time can be given as "units" if billing by minutes or message or as an "unlimited membership" with a fixed number of free hours of access.
- Allow free access to all (paying) user who bought time until a given date.
With this method, the user must buy time, but his account is not debited until a date fixed by the manager until which he has full unlimited access to the service. Once the free trial end date is reached, the users start to be billed normally.
Make sure that you advertise any free trial period in your promotion.