2. Zoosk Practical Test

The Zoosk experience test is based on thorough usage and exploration of the site. To produce a complete view of the product, two profiles were created, one male and one female. We then browsed all features on the site and conducted some first communications.

In addition, we checked Zoosk’s reputation online, looking at reviews and forums to get an idea how customers feel about the product. Can you really trust Zoosk? Will the service perform well in your area? -> we seek to answer these questions for you below.

First impressions

Zoosk has an appealing full screen landing page that, with its high quality of design, instantly reassures users that Zoosk is a major brand in the online dating world. This is no lie, as Zoosk remains one of the best established companies both for desktop and mobile dating.

Registration is available through Facebook and Google+ and is very simple to complete. There are a few basic questions about height and ethnicity and then the rest of the data, including your profile picture, is automatically imported (though you do have the option to change this later).

Picture: Profile view in Zoosk Search

Your first view of the platform after registration also gives a good impression. The platform is well laid out with the focus always on a new profile and the menu discreetly placed down the left hand side. It has a ‘social media’ style layout that is designed to appeal to all ages.

Number of members in your area test

Are there enough girls/guys on Zoosk in your area? To get an idea of how many members are available online on Zoosk we conducted a contact test. Dating sites come in many different shapes and sizes, but always the most important thing for the customer is how many contacts he or she makes. How many people get in touch and how many people respond to messages. Our contact test produces a score against this crucial metric for every site we review. Zoosk did very well in this test. There were plenty of members online and it looked like a good spread of members across the country. 

Registered as a man, we sent out 100 contact requests on Zoosk. This consisted of a mix of all the various ways of expressing interest on the site. For example, by messaging, 'liking', 'winking' and sending a gift. We received 35 responses of which 10 were winks and 25 were messages. This is a very respectable performance for men contacting women on dating websites and evidences a good level of active memebers on the service in Australia (the test was conducted in Melbourne).

Profile Quality

The quality of the profiles is generally high. Picture quality tends to be good and reflects a membership that looks fairly modern and computer literate. Most profiles also have a reasonably good level of information available. This is a lot to do with many accounts being linked to Facebook or google+ so that information is imported direct.

Zoosk also has a range of Profile verification options that offer real security that the person you are looking at is genuine.

Fake profiles can be a problem for all dating services and often the test of a service is not whether they have fake profiles on their books, but how many. However, our impression of Zoosk was very positive in this regard. Zoosk has a really good system of profile checking (see features list below) and most of the profiles looked genuine to us. 

3. Functions and profiles on Zoosk

What is unique about the Zoosk service? Zoosk’s core offer is its unique behavioural matching system. This is designed to learn about its customers as they browse through profiles and use the service. It makes the matching process very simple and many people will be happy enough just to use this as the basis of their search. However, Zoosk also provides a raft of other features that customers can use, if they wish. We have summarised our view of the most important ones:

Search

The search function on Zoosk is not the centrepiece of the service. In fact Zoosk aims to provide you with matches that are suitable, without you having to actively search these out yourself or mess around with filters (the unique behavioural matching system should do it all for you). Nonetheless, Zoosk does cater for those who want to take more control and provides a search function with lots of options. Age and location, of course, but if you go to ‘advanced search’ these options extend to ethnicity, family status and more. Comprehensive.

Smartpick

Smartpick sends you through recommendations that are more specifically suited to you. It is a function that brings a bit more quality matchmaking to the Zoosk platform in parallel with the more standard ‘open database’ approach. These special matches are based on your completed profile questionnaire or, failing that, rely on the behavioural matching system to specifically select your dream profiles.

Picture: Smartpick on Zoosk

Profile Verification

There are a number of ways in which Zoosk seeks to verify the photos and profile information of its members. These include ‘Facebook verified’ - where the account is linked to an active facebook account, ‘phone verified’ - where the users have submitted a valid phone number and video verification - where the user has submitted a moving image to the Zoosk team to prove the photo used is theirs. This is a really great feature from Zoosk and provides a lot of reassurance that the people you are interacting with are real. Excellent feature.

4. Customer Friendliness

Customer friendliness is a very important issue with online dating sites. The extent to which dating sites respond to the concerns and problems their customers varies a great deal from one site to another. How easy is it to get in touch with customer services? How quickly do they respond to customer concerns. Does the site operate automatic renewal of subscriptions and how easy is it to cancel this?

Contacting Customer services on Zoosk

It is easy to get in contact with Zoosk through customer services. They offer both an e-mail and telephone number (a telephone number is quite rare) and response times are good. There is also a useful and comprehensive FAQs section on the Zoosk site. All these options can be accessed from their 'contact' page that you can access from all parts of the website. It is a link at the bottom and you can even get in touch before you register. We gave the number a call and got a call back the same day from our telephone inquiry.

Picture: Customer Care contact page on Zoosk

Termination at Zoosk

Zoosk subscriptions are automatically renewed unless you actively cancel the service. This is very common (almost universal) practice amongst dating companies so we don’t score Zoosk down for this fact.

What’s more Zoosk makes cancelling your subscription easy. Whereas some dating sites make customers go through lengthy processes to cancel, Zoosk allows its customers to do this at the touch of a button. A big plus point for Zoosk.

Service and Design on Zoosk

So Zoosk is nicely desgined, but a little on the complex side. It’s wealth of features makes it fun to explore and play with, but it also can be a little confusing for the user. In the end most customers just want to be able to simply browse through their matches and understand how the system works. Zoosk always gives you the feeling that there are options and features you haven’t fully explored. So while we liked the design and look of Zoosk, we would recommend you don’t try to use every single function. Some of them are pretty superfluous!

Mobile use Zoosk/The Zoosk App

Zoosk has a good mobile app that is considerably simpler and easier to use than the desktop site. We like sites that offer both good apps and desktop functionality. This allows you to use the service wherever you are, but also means that you can sit down and write messages using your PC and the comfort of a full sized keyboard. 

Premium Membership with Zoosk.

Zoosk Premium Membership is available in three main options*:

·         A 6 months subscription costs  $12.49 per month  (50% cheaper per month than the 1-month option)

·         A 3 months subscription costs  $19.95 per month

·         To sign up just for one month only costs  $31.95

*these prices were current at the time of writing, but may change

We recommend you go for the six month package. It’s a substantial up front cost, but once that’s out of the way you’ll be able to really relax and take your time to use the service well. A month may seem like a long time, but it’ll race past you and the savings on the twelve month pack are such that it is really not a lot more expensive.