Sat, Aug 18, 2001 page19

• Woman puts matchmaking business on the Internet

  A professional matchmaker for 18 years is expanding her service onto the Internet, and she is determined to preserve her reputation for quality

  • By Kathy Brister / NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  In the business of love, reputation is everything. That's why Beatrice Gruss, professional matchmaker, looks a little nervous when she talks about expanding her high-end dating service to the Internet.

  She doesn't want to lose the reputation she's built for quality clients and quality service the past 18 years. She curbed plans for a big party to promote yesterdayday's launch of her company's online twin, TraditionalMatchmakers.com.

  The idea for the party came from her sons, now her business partners, whom she turned to 18 months ago when she saw her business eroding to Internet dating services. She's listened to their advice about technology and financing and patents. But she stands firm on what she values: Traditional Matchmakers' good name.

  

  Beatrice Gruss, left, and her sons, Emanuel, center, and Jeremy Citron, want to infuse TraditionalMatchmaker.com with a sense of fun.

  PHOTO: NY TIMES

  "It's not the party I object to. It's the lack of seriousness," Gruss explains, sitting in her softly furnished Buckhead office that houses four employees and looks more like a condo than a high-tech headquarters. "The tone has a lot to do with who I am and how I built the practice, and I don't want to lose that credibility."

  It's a worry shared by many entrepreneurs trying to bring traditional industries online. Gruss' business, with roots that go back centuries, brings Old World traditions to the "new economy."

  Gruss was born in Romania, where matchmaking was a duty of village women. She grew up in Mexico City, where couples often meet through family connections. She started the company after she got divorced in her mid-30s and discovered how difficult it can be to meet potential dates.

  Her sons, Jeremy and Emanuel Citron, want to infuse some fun into their mother's business. They say they want it to fit the freewheeling culture of the Internet. They want it to appeal to a younger crowd.

  But they understand it is their mother's reputation for carefully screening clients, for making good matches and for discretion that will separate TraditionalMatchmakers.com from other online dating services. They put her photograph on the Web site -- she casts a comforting gaze over the top of her spectacles -- and they listen to her.

  "There's a sense of trust that we're all in this together," said Jeremy Citron, a 29-year-old lawyer who left a large Atlanta firm to work with his family.

  His brother, Emanuel Citron, 27, left a job with a New York venture capital firm.

  He said the family ties eliminate "politics" involved with growing many companies. Instead, he said, it's just business.

  "This is clearly an industry that's not segmented and is going to grow. How can we grow the high-end business and retain it? As far as I know, we are the only service with a closed database, and our clients want to know their information will be kept private.

  But the key is customer service. "That's what my mom has been doing well for years," he said. "The matchmaking model, as opposed to the classified model, works so much better."

  He knows from experience. To research the feasibility of moving Traditional Matchmakers online, he registered on 10 dating sites. For the first couple of days, it was interesting to look for prospective dates. Then, he said, it became a lot like a job.

  "You don't want to come home after a long day at work, spend four hours sorting through the [online dating sites'] databases, send out e-mail, then have nobody get back to you," he said.

  It was having some of the drudgery taken out of dating that drew an employee-relations professional for an Atlanta technology firm to Beatrice Gruss more than a year ago. "She gets rid of the guesswork for me," said Lori, a 36-year-old who's never been married and is picky about the men she dates.

  Gruss gets through the first 15 questions -- about income, lifestyle, dating history -- for offline clients, who pay US$765 a year.

  Applicants wanting to be matched through TraditionalMatchmakers.com pay a US$150 registration fee. Then they must pass a background check and an online questionnaire, submit a photograph and go through a telephone interview with a matchmaker.

  The process screens clients who "don't fit" and categorizes others by levels of fitness and education, hobbies, income, religion and appearance -- all criteria known by the matchmaker but not shown to clients.

  If online applicants make it through those phases, they'll pay a US$25 monthly fee. That gets them two matches.

  The company's proprietary software ranks possible matches, and the final decision is made by a matchmaker. If Gruss and her personally trained matchmaking assistant see a good fit, they may get two more matches during the month.

  Gruss wants the technology to help expand her business, but she doesn't want it to take over.

  "I used to control everything," she said. "I used to be the one interviewing and determining whether to take someone in. Now some of that is going to be done with technology.

  "How accurate it will be as opposed to sitting down with someone, I don't know."
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