Talk at ABAC

Posted 12.17.2008 in Random

Last week, I was invited to speak at the Business School of ABAC University on the Matchmaking Industry.  The lecture has about 150 students attending, and so I felt very excited and a little bit overwhelmed at the same time, partly because I never had to speak in front of so many youngsters before and secondly because it’s a “business school”.  Not having done any business courses, nor taking any entrepreneur lessons in college (my background is Chemistry – ironically), I feared my knowledge in business terminolgy is very limited.  But as it turned out, my matchmaking lecture was well received, it ended with a loud applause and followed by numerous questions from both the students and the lectures.  (I couldn’t help thinking either they were very keen to set up a dating agency, or they want to sign up for the services!)

One of them asked me about “defect”. In a manufacturing industry, sometimes you get a product defect, is there a defect in the service industry and how do you deal with them? 

I replied that I viewed “defect” as an extreme unsatisfication in the dating partner.  MeetNLunch consultants would find out what went wrong after the date, and if it’s our fault, then we will give the full refund.  It’s rarely happened but the point is, we take a responsibility in our “product defect” if it occurs, just like how the manufacturing companies asked for the product  returned and find a new replacement or refund etc. 

What are the major obstacles in setting up MeetNLunch or dating service in Thailand? and How do I overcome the problems?

I touched on many problems when these questions came up.  Thailand has long been suffering from Bride Order Mail, sex trade and human trafficking.  There are many horror stories surrounding the old dating industry, such as how the dating agency would take the clients money and disappeared, or it turned out to be a disguised form of human trafficking organization.  I have a massive challenge to overcome this negative image surrounding the industry.  We have to gain the public trust and educate the public on date safety, how to be succesful on first date, and how a good matchmaker can add value to finding the right person. 

The next problem is the bad job and good job scenario.  Like any other businesses, if we provide a bad service, the clients didn’t meet anyone they like or we didn’t do our job properly, the clients don’t use the service again and give the industry a bad reputation.  However, if we do a good job, i.e. we got our clients a partner, and they ended up getting married, we lose another clients.  Succesful and happy clients don’t come back.  So we relied heavily on doing the best we can to make people happy, so they would recommend the service to their friends, and in return sustaining our business. And using  an appropriate amount on marketing regularly also helps, so when the clients turned single, they will remember MeetNLunch.  ”Want a Gread Date, Think MeetNLunch”

What do you think of Internet Networking? Do you feel they are a threat?

I think they are a great invention of 21st Century.  Hi5, Facebook and MySpace help to connect people together and keep them up-to-date like we could have never done before.  If you meet someone you like on them, you can check out their photos, and their activities, it could help give you some clue about the type of person they are. However, at the end of the day, you have to meet the person to start a successful relationship. You cannot find out if this is the right person for you by merely reading email and chat online.  This brings us right back to face-to-face matchmaking, and it answers all the doubt you have when you want to date someone because we does the screening, the service is confidential, not to say there are more choices of the appropriate profiles, matching techniques that use both rationale and intuition, and we also listen to clients’ feedback and constantly tried to improve each dating experience better if it’s not already good.  Can the Internet Networking does this for singles?  Last time I checked, it’s a not yet.