Getting hooked up with a real date has been made very easy and flawless at the Lagosmatchmaker where matchmaking service has been helping the busy people who have little or no time to socialize meet their companions at their convenience.
This was the submission of United States trained dating coach of 25 years practical experience, Nkpubre Arit Edet, who is the CEO of Lagosmatchmaker.
According to her, Lagosmatchmaker focuses on connecting singles above 25 years and letting them enjoy the dating process. It focuses on meeting an individual, having a first and second date.
She disclosed that the process taking by the Lagosmatchmaker in fixing dates is very genuine and transparent, adding that clients need not entertain any fear of being exposed to fraud.
“I don’t think there is any worry with internet fraud with Lagosmatchmaker because it’s not strictly an online matching platform. We do have an office located off Admiralty way, Lekki, Lagos where clients can come in and discuss the process if they so wish. But we discovered that a lot of people don’t have the time which is why a lot of our work is done online,” said the Lagosmachmaker expert.
She differentiated between online dating and matchmaking, saying that: “Online dating encompasses the use of the website to meet other singles while matchmaking is a bit more personalized and suitable for busy singles and especially those that need help filtering through a group of singles.”
On the kind of people who patronizes the business, the graduate of Economics from the prestigious Howard University, who had her Masters in International Strategy from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, said: “We have a huge variety of people from various locations and various status of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. We have singles that have never been married, divorced, widowed and more. Our client base can be described as the working class that may not have a lot of time for social activities so outsource a part of their social life to us.”
While giving insights into how matchmaking works, Edet said that: “On the platform, we had an open database of various user profiles where people can make their choices on possible matches based on information displayed on their profiles like tribe, age and alma mater. It also had a chat feature. We have also put in place process to cover up any loose ends for clients.”
On the expectations clients have with meeting other single individuals, the CEO of Lagosmatchmaker said that most of them do expect the best.
“I want to say that some expectations are reasonable and some are so out there which is what we call the search for the unicorn. With the new age and availability of options, people don’t put in as much effort to get to know a person and at the slightest view of imperfection, the person wants to move on to the next single individual. The process involves us being transparent and clear on giving dating advice to the clients,” added the Lagosmatchmaker boss.
While the Lagosmatchmaker as the name suggests is based in the city of Lagos, it actually has many users from places outside of the city including Abuja, the US and the UK and other cities of the world.
There is no business in the world that does not have its own peculiar challenges; Edet said of the problems she had to overcome when she started the matchmaking business.
According to Edet: “I have encountered a lot of challenges. The fact that matchmaking is fairly new to Nigeria in the business sector means there s no blueprint or previous marketing plan to follow.
“This was a major challenge to learn how to market and educate the mass about what we do and the process. We are privacy-focused so we have to explain to clients that we don’t have pictures posted of individuals. Things are done manually which doesn’t make the process as efficient but it leads to better results and we are highly focused on the results.”
“Another major challenge was getting good staff. That took about a year to find the perfect people that understand the job, get them a little bit of training and it’s been a blessing to have people who genuinely care about the clients as I do.
“Another challenge is explaining to people what we do. Some people think we give relationship advice which is not what we do. We focus on the dating aspect of life because this is an area I have been certified in and also as a single individual dating, things in this aspect are fresher to my understanding. We are linking individuals together and that’s it,” added the dating expert behind Lagosmatchmaker.