Using a Personal Matchmaker to find love

Authentication and verification

At The County Register we deploy a high-quality authentication and verification system brought to us by our partners Lexis Nexis, this enables us to ensure that all members, whatever their background or source, reach our minimum membership criteria and standards.

We check all new members or prospective members for 1) Residency – making sure that they reside at the address provided and are not living with a partner. 2) Reports of crime, particularly fraud and money crime. 3) That they appear to be solvent and not subject to bankruptcy orders or CCJ’s. We also check photographic evidence of ID such as a driving licence or passport.

Age Groups

The County Register covers all age groups from 25 upwards. Personal Matchmaking was once predominantly utilised by older people in their 50’s and beyond, including people well into their retirement years, but the reduction in numbers of potential meeting venues such as pubs and nightclubs, along with disappointments with online dating has created a need and desire within much younger adults to utilise a Professional Matchmaker to seek high quality partners. We were therefore happy to extend the coverage from 30 plus down to 21 plus, right up to those in retirement who would still like to find love.

Best Advice

Sometimes members have very specific ideas on the type of partner they wish to meet and differing personal circumstances too. Our Membership Advisers will always take time to get to know each potential member and this is achieved through our Discovery Questionnaire, to build up the fullest possible picture of each client and what they would like to achieve. They can then recommend a way forward and which of our membership options would best achieve your goals.

Confidentiality

One of the biggest reasons that people choose The County Register and using a Personal Matchmaker is the confidentiality aspect and the fact that we guarantee that never will your photograph, profile and personal details ever be placed on a public internet site, where others such as family, friends, neighbours or work colleagues could see you and identify you.

For many, this is singularly the most important aspect of joining us, as opposed to a busy and highly public online dating site or dating app. Your personal details are only shared with our matchmaking team and carefully selected potential matches. Your full name and address are kept private, and your phone number will only be shared when both parties have said yes to the exchange.

Chemistry

We know from many thousands of successful matches in over 40 years of matchmaking, that chemistry comes from diversity rather than complete commonality and that some of our most successful matches from over the years have resulted from our Bonus Matches, that are away from the rigid criteria clients may think to impose when they join. It is also a proven psychological fact that attraction happens with some differences, rather than two people just having lots in common. We therefore urge our members to be as flexible and open minded as possible during their membership, because attraction often happens when you’re least expecting it. So why restrict your opportunities with rigid travel distances, height fixations or ethnicity?

Children

Having children in your life can sometimes be a blessing and sometimes it can work against you in dating. Some are happy to include children, and some aren’t – it’s just down to personal feelings and choices. But nevertheless, this is an important area to consider and only you as an individual can do that.

Contact Frequency

When you join The County Register, our aim is to please and obtain the very best outcome that we can. So we will set out our minimum standards with regards to the contact frequency you can expect from your own matchmaker or our matchmaking team.

Obviously, if you join on one of our higher level or premium memberships you will be entitled to significantly more frequent interaction, searches and feedback than members that have joined on our more modestly priced entry level Cameo product and every level of membership has clearly defined standards of contact and types of contact i.e. email, telephone, video and face to face reviews. Our aim is always to exceed expectations and delight our members with how we interact with them and what we are able to achieve.

Crime

Online dating and dating app related crime is one of the fastest growing crime categories in the UK and increased by 382% between 2016 and 2020 according to Google, often with very serious offences at the forefront; murder, rape, GBH, blackmail, stalking. We see it as our role to protect members from this as much as we can. Use of our in-house authentication and verification system is one of the major steps we take to protect our members from this and to prevent anyone with a previous criminal record from joining, with a particular emphasis on fraud, scamming and money crime.

Complaint Handling

We actually get very few complaints, as our terms and conditions and Members Handbook are very clear and comprehensive, setting out what we can achieve for members but also the things that we cannot. So, every new member should have a clear idea of how things work before they join.

Our matchmaking team are trained to a high standard through our professional Matchmaking Academy and our comprehensive customer experience training, to help deliver the best in terms of membership experience and value for money.

We do also have strong and professional processes in place to handle complaints if they do occur, with the aim of nipping them in the bud before they escalate, and concerns are initially handled by our Matchmakers initially.

If this cannot resolve things quickly for you then it is escalated to our Customer Experience Manager, who will be happy to talk things through with you and we would hope to be able to resolve dissatisfactions by his particular juncture. However, where any complaint is still unresolved, there is the opportunity for the matter to be escalated to our Customer Experience Director as the final point of contact in our complaints handling process.

Coping with Occasional Rejection

Dating and personal matchmaking is by nature, an emotional area and unfortunately it can involve some rejection, as people’s preferences and views on matches vary dramatically, just as they do if you were meeting in real life. The best advice we can give on this issue is ‘don’t take it personally’. It’s not always down to attraction, it could just be that you might look too much like an ex or on occasions not enough like an ex, they may be distracted by family problems, or something may have happened at work and the timing just isn’t quite right currently. The happy news is that your matchmaker is on your side and is always strongly endorsing you to others, so with their help we get the feedback that we help members ‘punch above their weight’ on occasions. Please be patient therefore, and that could happen for you too.

Dating Coaching

We provide dating coaching as standard for some higher-level memberships, and this varies from a 1-hour introductory session to 8 in-depth sessions for those seeking a greater degree of help and support. If coaching is not provided within your own membership but it becomes apparent that it would be helpful, you could pay for coaching as an optional extra or you could consider a membership upgrade to where it is included as standard, which would then include some free matchmaking time (the month in which you upgrade), and also a generous reduction on our standard prices. This can easily be arranged through your matchmaker.

Our dating coaches tailor sessions to the individual but can talk you through the opportunity you currently have and getting the absolute maximum from it, your previous relationships to try to ensure similar issues aren’t repeated, and/or issues you may encounter or discover about yourself in the early weeks of membership. Working with a coach is a highly personalised experience with the emphasis on YOU the member and the areas you would like to concentrate on. It’s an experience we recommend wholeheartedly to support you during your dating journey.

Diversity

Diversity has become part of the fabric of the UK over the last 50 years or so and has gathered pace since the start of the new millennium. The UK embraces new cultures, different foods and alternative lifestyles and has become very multicultural, with dating following suit. Our client base mirrors that evolution and we attract members from many backgrounds. We know that according to psychology, opposites attract, and chemistry often comes from being diverse rather than where there is complete commonality. We therefore ask members to be open minded and open to diversity, rather than restricting their opportunities in who they might consider as a potential match.

DAA

We are proud members of the Dating Agency Association and support its strict code of conduct and member guidelines. The DAA was first formed in the 1990’s and for a long period existed as the Introductions Services Federation but changed its name to be more easily accessed and visible in 2013. The DAA is under the chairmanship of Heather Heber Percy, one of the best-established names in the personal matchmaking industry, and their website is www.datingagencyassociation.org.uk

Database

Our database is one of our biggest assets and consists of more than 36,000 individuals, made up of existing members and prospective members (enquirers). We believe it to be the largest of its type in the UK, of members who have been personally interviewed and carefully vetted for your peace of mind.

Duo

Our bespoke customer management system Duo was built by our own in-house engineers with design input from our matchmakers and membership advisers. Duo handles all enquiries from the initial client contact through a referral or one of our websites, through to the member joining, being onboarded by our New Client Registration team, and throughout their membership with their matchmaker. We believe this enables us to provide a seamless service to our clients and the best possible membership experience.

Education

Clients sometimes ask for matches with others with particular levels of education. Whilst our database includes many who are university graduates, we ask our clients to bear in mind that there are also many high achievers and highly intelligent people who for various reasons, chose not to go to university. Whilst we can accept certain educational standards as part of your partner preferences, we cannot guarantee to solely match to this criteria and strongly encourage an open minded approach to open up the opportunities that our service can provide.

Ethnicity

We cater for all ethnicities in terms of recruitment of members and are happy to consider people from all backgrounds without any question. We are also happy for you to include ethnicity as part of your partner preferences but if we are catering to search for a minority ethnicity, this is a niche sector within our personally interviewed and carefully checked out members and as we do not have millions of people on our books, we cannot guarantee to solely match on ethnicity. Therefore, we strongly encourage an open-minded approach to open opportunities for our clients.

Exchange

‘Exchange’ means that both members have accepted each other’s profile, the match has moved forward with contact details provided for the parties to make contact, and with the hope that this leads to a lasting relationship.

Extra Confidentiality

Under the confidentiality section we talked about confidentiality and privacy being amongst the biggest of all the reasons that people choose personal matchmaking over online dating or a dating app and go on to join us. This is such a major issue for some members or potential members that we have built in an option of ‘extra confidentiality’, whereby the member’s own profile is not sent out until they have first seen the profile of another member if at a lower membership level first and said yes, they are happy to proceed. If this is something you didn’t choose as part of your initial membership, we know that it can be extremely important, and we are happy to make it available to existing members who didn’t choose it initially by way of an upgrade.

Face to Face Dating

Traditional face to face dating is another term sometimes used for personal matchmaking and remains as an accurate and appropriate way of describing our service. With us, you are not just a name or a number, but a person, a somebody. Someone who is real to us and valued, rather than a nondescript, username amongst millions of others.

Friends’ Opinions

We are working with you personally as our member on a strictly confidential basis. Members often join solely because of the way we work and our high standards around confidentiality and privacy. We cannot therefore accept or condone profiles being shared with friends who are non-members and their opinions sought. That would be a serious breach of our agreement with you as it breaches the privacy of other members, and we would ask for your fullest cooperation on this aspect of your membership.

Guarantees

We offer two types of guarantees. The first is on the numbers of matches you will receive, either on a recommendations basis or where we commit to providing confirmed introductions, where the client has gone into exchange with someone.

Also, we guarantee your confidentiality and that never will your photograph, profile or personal details appear on a public website or app; these will always just be shared between you, our matchmakers and carefully selected potential matches.

Handbook

Our Member’s Handbook is sent out to anyone who requests it and to all joiners or potential joiners. It’s an important document and provides a very realistic and accurate view of our service and how we operate along with some helpful advice on how to make the most of your membership with us.

Health Issues

We cannot discriminate, so occasionally we may accept people for membership who may have health issues but would always point out that honesty must prevail and that some more serious health issues could impact on the numbers of matches we are able to successfully procure for you.

Hold

Hold is our freeze facility that we make available on many of our higher-level memberships. It’s quite simply the facility to turn off your membership for any reason, but particularly when you’re dating and evaluating whether that person is ‘the one’. It stops the clock ticking with your matchmaking service and buys you the time to give your date a real chance to succeed.

Height Fixations

Many people seem to be fixated on height these days and it’s a shame as it can be a block to some potentially great matches. We can understand a lady of 5ft 9in wanting a man over 5’10 or 6 foot tall, but for someone of 5ft 6in or below, is it really that vital? The sad fact is that it cuts down your pool of matches by around 80% and could mean missing out on meeting someone who might make you very happy. So we do recommend some flexibility if at all possible.

Home visits

Home visits can be arranged, wherever you are in mainland UK, so that your profiling interview is conducted in your own home, where you are at your most relaxed and comfortable. These are included with our higher-level memberships as standard and may also be arranged for an additional fee if not included in the package being purchased.

History

History shows that traditional matchmaking has been around in the UK for centuries and way before the advent of online dating, which was launched in around 1997 through kiss.com, with match.com first crossing to the UK market in 1998.

In terms of traditional dating, the first ‘modern day’ dating agency, called a ‘Matrimonial Bureau’ in those days, opened it’s doors in London in 1705, 2 years even before the United Kingdom came into being.

After the Great War in 1920’s USA, dating agencies sprung up in many US cities and the UK followed suit in the 1930’s with Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver launching their ‘Marriage Bureau’ business, in Bond Street, Mayfair.

Later John Patterson and his wife Sandy Nye launched the world’s first computerised agency in 1966 which ran until 2010 and in the 1980’s Heather Heber Percy’s Country Partners, later The County Register was launched in 1983. We have been around for 40 years plus, therefore.

Headhunting

Clients might, as some examples, give us a particular area that they are seeking someone from, possibly someone of a certain occupation or seeking matches from an age group younger than themselves where those in our database may not necessarily be seeking someone of the client’s own age, and this may mean the options are more limited. However, headhunting opens the search possibilities beyond our current database and it has proved very helpful for some clients when included in the membership service.

We have a full-time head-hunter at the present time as well as others in our team involved, so if this is something you have omitted from your membership that you really think should have been included, then we could add it for you via an upgrade.

Higher levels of priority

Some months we have very high levels of new joiners, and they are often in demand to be seen first. A higher level of priority is something included in higher levels of membership, giving you greater opportunities to meet new joiners as soon as they come onboard, as well as to see the profiles of other eligible members when they become free to date. If you don’t have higher priority as yet then talk to your matchmaker about adding it as an upgrade.

Income

We ask that you indicate your income levels within a banding, this is purely to try to assist our matchmakers in matching where possible, to someone of a similar background and social standing. There cannot be any sort of guarantee on this however, indeed it may not be a preference for many, where personality and physical appearance may be stronger considerations.

Introductions

Our higher-level memberships include our guarantee of confirmed introductions as opposed to matchmaker recommendations, where members with these memberships would normally go into exchange before their matches would count towards their membership.

Interviews

We have various types of interviews. The most popular is our face-to-face version, either in the client’s home but increasingly these days, at our Warwickshire based head office where we have a small photography studio and can take quality profile photographs to portray you at your best – all on a complimentary basis. In addition, we can arrange interviews through our in-house video telephone system, using Microsoft Teams, via Zoom or WhatsApp.

Invitation Only Members

We have head-hunters working with us and we are also members of the Inter Agency Matching Group with other well-established matchmaking agencies around the UK. On occasions, we specifically headhunt people for our members, and we call these ‘By Invitation Only’ members. If their initial date didn’t progress, they may stay on the database and if they prove to be an attractive match for a full member, then we’d be happy to arrange this. Some of our ‘By Invitation Only’ members are extremely attractive, personable and prove to be very popular.

Joining Options

We offer a huge range of joining options ranging from just £3,295, which is very competitive to be able to use your own matchmaker. If you want the very best service that we have then yes, it’s more expensive but we know that our top fees are very competitive against other London based agencies, where £18,000 to £30,000 could be just their starting point.

At the end of the day, every one of our joining options is different and we believe represents very good value for money, so if you want ongoing support from a top quality dating coach and head-hunter as well as one of our most experienced matchmakers, if you want the highest levels of confidentiality and priority, if you want generous lengths of the on-hold facility to thoroughly evaluate each date, if you want an extended interview and really personal attention and to be matched with someone from a similar level to you, then one of our top packages may suit you best. We want you to be delighted with our service.

Keeping Members Safe

In these days of burgeoning online dating/dating app related crime we want to be right at the front of the initiatives to keep our members safe. We have worked with Action Fraud run by the City of London Police, as well as the Dating Agency Association on their Dating Safely initiative.

We set very high identity standards too, checking people’s passport or driving licence and using our in-house authentication and verification system to check each and every potential member for residency, involvement in crime (with a particular emphasis on money crime and fraud) and for solvency, making sure they are joining for the right reasons. We believe this goes further than any other agency.

Location

Part of our initial discussions will be your preferred travel distance from your home location. We are not a vast anonymous online site, but we have met, interviewed and got to know every one of our members. We can vouch for our members and 100% guarantee that they are who they say they are and are completely genuine. We therefore normally recommend a 1-hour travel distance as a minimum for each member and that seems to work very well.

Love

The dictionary definition of love is ‘An intense feeling of deep affection’. Finding someone to love is a basic human need and function and for us matching you with the right partner is the fundamental first step in the process. We’d very much like you to be matched at the right level too and therefore priority may be an important consideration. Look out therefore for a membership package that features priority.

Love – the seven types

According to Psychology Today, there are 7 types of love. The ancient Greeks recognised these different types and named them as follows:

• Eros – erotic, passionate love.
• Philia – love of friends and equals
• Storge – the love of parents for children
• Agape – the love of mankind
• Ludus – playful or uncommitted love
• Pragma – practical love based on duty and one’s long-term interests
• Philautia – self-love, placing oneself above the Gods

Marital Status

We take people who are genuinely single. They may be separated rather than divorced, we also take those divorced, widowed or single and never married. On exceptional occasions, we may consider someone still with a partner or still married to someone who is in a care home, and/or who is suffering from a serious health condition such as dementia. But would always disclose this to other members.

Matchmaker

Our matchmakers often have a real vocation for helping people to find love and that is why they choose personal matchmaking as a career. Every one of our matchmakers has been trained to a high standard through our matchmaking academy course, which is accredited by the DAA. They also go through our extensive customer experience training, to enable them to provide the greatest standards of care to our members. Some of our team started their careers with us as long ago as 2006 and have literally assisted thousands of members to find love since they began their careers with us.

Membership Adviser

Our membership advisers are the first point of contact for all enquiries and have also all progressed through our matchmaking academy to enable them to provide the highest standards of care and best advice. So, if you make an enquiry via one of our websites or the telephone, then one of our membership advisers will respond to you. They will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the service at no obligation, and all are very friendly and approachable, they are excellent at putting you at your ease.

Number of Matches

Each membership level that we have will have a number of recommendations or confirmed introductions guaranteed that we are happy to work to, but we will carry on beyond this number where matchmaking time still remains and if you are still seeking a partner

Origins

Personal Matchmaking has been with us for centuries and possibly even longer. In the past, down the centuries, each village or town would have had an elder or more than one, that ‘brought people together’ usually before the coming of age at 21, this type of traditional matchmaking still prevails in some countries and cultures even today. Advertising for a potential partner became popular in the early 18th century – coinciding with the launch of the worlds first daily newspaper The Daily Courant in 1702.

The County Register itself was formed in Shropshire in the early 1980’s.

Open Minds

We often find that people who are open minded enjoy the best and most successful memberships. They tend to come into their membership wholeheartedly, determined to get the most from it and are supportive of their matchmaker and the recommendations being provided. We never know when Cupid might strike or from what direction or where and why chemistry comes into play. Being restrictive over distance or height or commonality is not recommended, after all why potentially reject someone who could be ‘the one’ because they are a little over your preferred travelling distance or an inch shorter than your ideal?

One at a time matching

Our belief and strategy is to treat every match as precious and this has been developed over 40 years of matchmaking – half a lifetime for the experience and good practices to be gleaned over that timescale. We are only ever looking for one perfect match, ‘the one’ that could change your life. Therefore, we match on a ‘one at a time’ basis to give you and those we match you with, the chance to properly evaluate each match. Particularly when you go into exchange with someone, this has been a winning formula over the years – the opposite to swiping left or right in half a second on a dating app.

Online Dating and Apps

Online Dating first came to the UK in 1997 with kiss.com, and the biggest player of all match.com came into the country in 1998. Without a doubt, online dating transformed dating in the UK and around the world. At it’s peak some 10 million Brits were using OLD, including a world record 7 million all using online dating together on the 2nd January 2013.

Since that time numbers have nosedived to around 5 million today, just 30% of what the market once was. Burgeoning crime statistics, fake profiles and dating scammers, have been the root cause of this dramatic decline and 95% of our enquiries start off with, “I have tried online dating, but it isn’t for me, because……..”

Preferences

We ask for your partner preferences at the interview stage and we will endeavour to match to as many of the preferences from the list you have provided. However, from experience, we know that often our most successful matches come from matches where a level of diversity creates that all important chemistry, rather than total commonality. Members displaying some flexibilities often do best, therefore.

Profiles

Many people find that one of the hardest tasks in dating is writing about themselves and creating an attractive, sought-after profile that shows them at their absolute best. So why not let our matchmaking team do that for you?

We will write you a comprehensive and attractive professional profile that shows you at your absolute best – to meet the best possible partner, you need to come over at your best too. It’s all part of our service to you and your matchmaker may from time to time, suggest profile tweaks if they feel this could enhance your membership. 40 plus years of dating success helps this process.

Photographs

Your profile photographs really matter and our small photography studio at our head office is often in demand dozens of times each month. We will aim to capture you at your best and we sometimes suggest taking your photographs outside as the light is better. We usually use one headshot and one full length photograph – but we will take several photos for you to choose from. It’s all on a complimentary basis too, just part of the service that we provide for members.

Priority

We usually have lots of new joiners in a particular month and many people enjoy getting access to our new joiners first. You can do this by having high priority included in your membership package. That way we can consider you for dates with our newest members as the name suggests – as a priority. Don’t worry if that isn’t something you included initially, talk to your matchmaker and we could upgrade you. The remainder of your first month is always free and we will also offer a generous ‘Member Discount’ of 20% off as an inducement too.

Patience

Patience very much is a virtue, and you can be reassured that we will be working hard on all occasions to provide you with the very best customer experience. At the end of the day ‘just one match’ – the right one for you, could change your life forever and that special someone could be walking into your life, potentially forever. So please do be patient and build a long term and very positive relationship with your matchmaker whilst you are on this dating journey, they are on your side and are a massive ally to you. They’re always ‘your friend in the dating business’.

Questionnaire

Our Discovery Questionnaire is the tool that we use to find out as much as we can about our prospective members to enable us to always give you our ‘best advice’ on the right level of membership for you. It is usually undertaken through discussions between you and our membership adviser, so they can understand about you, your personality, your background and standing in the community, your hopes and aspirations for the future and the type of partner you are looking for or if you are open minded as to who might suit you. It can help immensely in the future with regards to matching you at the right level and with someone at an appropriate level for you. So please do answer openly and honestly – nothing is set in tablets of stone and there is no compulsion to proceed with our recommendations, but who knows, it may just be the catalyst to bring Mr or Ms Right into your life.

Rapport

The rapport between yourself and your personal matchmaker is incredibly important and can have a significant impact on the success of your membership and the chances of finding ‘the one’ – we recommend that you nurture this relationship and work together with your matchmaker on your dating journey.

Reducing Risk

Online dating and dating apps are the backdrop to one of the fastest growing crime categories in the UK and its often very serious crime to boot. This on occasions sadly includes violence as well as fraud and scamming, with all too little being done by many online providers and apps to stamp this out.

Our aim is to work dramatically differently and much more personally to reduce the risks involved. This is achieved through our in-house authentication and verification system, personal interviews, our insistence on seeing photographic evidence of identity, checking addresses for existing partners and investigating behind the scenes for evidence of any previous involvement in crime or serious financial issues. These checks are all carried out prior to membership being approved – and going the extra mile to protect you.

Rejecting profiles

We urge that you don’t simply reject profiles out of hand. Our matchmaking team work hard to provide you with carefully researched matches who we feel have real potential for you. From experience and many years of providing our service, we know that chemistry often comes when unexpected and from unusual directions, from some degree of diversity rather than complete commonality and everything matching your own interests. So please give your matches a chance to work.

Religion

We welcome members from all backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities but without our expressed written agreement, we could not take someone on who wishes to be solely matched by their religious beliefs. We prefer a multi cultural approach, which seems to work well.,

Respondent members ‘by invitation only’

Sometimes we recruit people via our head-hunter, specifically for a member but if that particular match doesn’t work for any reason, these respondent members can be on our books and we may suggest them to you as in the normal way, even though we are not actively looking for matches for them in the same way as a full member. Please be assured that all respondents have been through the same vetting process as all members, they are often very attractive, personable people and we thoroughly recommend that you pursue these matches wholeheartedly. After all these people have been selected ‘by invitation only’.

Reviews

At higher levels of membership, face to face reviews with your matchmaker can be available at our offices. You are invited for a coffee or tea and a face-to-face meeting. If visiting us isn’t practicable then we are happy to offer reviews via Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Reviews can be very beneficial for both the member and us.

Same sex matchmaking

Same sex matchmaking has become more popular and sought after in recent years and we have operated this service since 2013 for both males and females who are seeking a partner of their own sex though our sister brand Gay Relationships.

Safety

We support the Dating Agency Association’s Dating Safely Campaign, please ask for a copy of their Dating Safely Handbook if you’ve not seen this. A huge percentage of our joiners come onboard because of fears or bad experiences with online dating or dating apps and we want to help and reassure through the actions that we take to keep people as safe as possible. Please see the section under the heading ‘reducing risk’ above.

Scammers

Scamming has become a massively significant issue over the last 2 decades or so, it has become one of the fastest growing crimes in the UK and globally, with more than £100 million globally per annum attributed to online scamming, with a significant percentage coming from online dating sites and apps. The steps we take in taking people through our very thorough interview processes and comprehensive vetting procedures obviously mitigates that risk considerably, but we ask all members to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious behaviour to us immediately, despite us never having that problems previously.

Sexual Suggestions

We base our memberships and service on the principles of courtesy, decency, politeness and consideration to all. So sexual suggestions to other members particularly people you have been newly introduced to or ‘sexting’ via smart phones are not within the spirit of our membership agreements and we would ask that you don’t become involved in this practice. Pay your fellow members the respect of building up a rapport first prior to becoming involved with making sexual suggestions to them.

Terms & conditions

Our terms and conditions are very clearly written, they set out clearly how we operate and how we can best help bring that wonderful new partner into your life. We operate in the way that we do because of practices that have developed over time and they have enabled us to be successful over many years of matchmaking and enjoy thousands of successes. They are always sent to you in advance and certainly before you commit to becoming a member. Please read them carefully so that you have a full understanding of how we operate and can help.

Teams

We try to use the best in technology to enhance our service to the public and our members. Our telephone system is provided by our Telecom partner 2CX and is linked to video via Microsoft Teams and can provide a first-class service to members. We answer our phones in person and in the UK from 9am until 9pm everyday including weekends and many Bank Holidays. At busy times please leave a message and we will get back to you within 24 working hours.

Traditions

Traditional face to face dating has been around for centuries and was established way before meeting via the internet was a possibility. The County Register brand stretches back for many years since 1983 and our support team has literally 100’s of years of dating experience within it.

Training for staff

We take training very seriously and every member of our matchmaking and membership adviser teams have graduated from our matchmaking academy. Matchmakers have also gone through our comprehensive customer experience programmes to enable them to deliver to the exacting standards we operate to.

Upgrades

Sometimes people misjudge the type of membership that they really need until they are experiencing the service and can understand exactly how it works. Our Membership Adviser will have made a recommendation to you and provided you with their ‘Best Advice’, but perhaps you proceeded at a lower level because of budgetary considerations or because you didn’t realise you wanted a particular feature as part of your membership package.

Sometimes clients will re-evaluate and wish that they had included headhunting, higher priority, extra confidentiality, extra hold, or confirmed introductions rather than recommendations, advice from a dating coach, a longer membership etc. Well don’t worry as these can be added by your matchmaker at some point during your membership and the great news is that the remainder of the first month is always free of charge and we also offer a generous 20% discount too – you’re an existing member after all and this addition could considerably enhance your membership experience.

Visiting the office

We get many visitors to the office, and we always welcome our members, by prior appointment obviously. At the office you could meet your membership adviser, your matchmaker and/or our New Client Registration team. We could also provide that complimentary photo shoot to ensure that your profile has attractive, well thought out, clear photos that portray you at your very best. You can also see how we operate, and we could undertake your profiling interview or may offer you a membership review. We would certainly make you very welcome.

VIP Options

Our membership options have a VIP level which is our Elegance Package, we believe that helps your customer experience as a member be the best that it can be and comes highly recommended to you. It’s very competitively priced against the rest of the industry too – you may be surprised.

Welcome Call

Usually, you are recruited through our team of membership advisers, who will take you through our Discovery Questionnaire to find out as much as we can about you, whether or not we can assist you and then make their recommendation to you as ‘Best Advice’ with regards to which membership package you should proceed with.

Following this we will take a payment from you and proceed to process your application by arranging your interview and carrying out our usual onboarding checks.

Your matchmaking gets underway with a welcome call with your personal matchmaker, where she will explain how we work, how she will proceed with her searches for you and provide your matches, our etiquette and also answer any questions you may have. Your first match follows after this call and your matchmaker will want to hear your feedback on this, hopefully for this to progress to a date for you.

X Rated Photographs

Our memberships are based on the good old-fashioned principles of courtesy, decency, being polite and kind to fellow members.

We have never had a problem with this but we know some dating agencies have, so unsolicited photographs of a sexual or obscene nature or ‘sexting’ via smart phones are not within the spirit of our membership agreements and we would ask that you don’t become involved in this.

Younger or Older Matches

Many people tend to think they look younger than they are, even when to potential partners and often to their matchmaker they clearly don’t. Perhaps it how we handle getting older as humans or maybe it’s just that many of us look younger than people of our age used to do, in days gone by.

So, whilst we are happy to try to find younger matches for you, it does often make the matchmakers role much harder, so we can never 100% guarantee you younger matches and we do ask for some realism from our members on this issue. We can’t hide your age either and won’t suggest to our members that anyone is younger than the age we have on record.

Zoom Interviews

We always try to use technology to our advantage and during the Covid pandemic we used video technology an awful lot to continue to provide a very good service to our members and potential members. So much so that we actually boomed during lockdown and increased membership numbers year on year. We have therefore retained many of the new features that we developed during the pandemic and use of video calls in terms of Zoom and particularly Microsoft Teams by our matchmakers and membership advisers, is one of the best enhancements of recent years. Please don’t worry about using technology – we can and will help.