By Peter Berton

LONDON, Ontario – By definition, the adult industry is all about “customer satisfaction.” Yet, when it comes to customer service, some adult websites and services leave their subscribers feeling frustrated, used and willing to look elsewhere — which, when you think about it, is so ironic it’s almost painful.

That’s where Adult Support Systems comes in. The company is staffed with customer service professionals who provide adult websites and other businesses with friendly, informed and helpful assistance. According to Operations Manager Shauna Getty, outsourcing customer support not only can prevent subscriber churn, but also frees a company’s core staff to attend to other aspects of the bottom line.

Getty sat down with YNOT to explain in more detail how outsourcing customer service to trained professionals can benefit adult entrepreneurs.

YNOT:com: What exactly is Adult Support Systems?

Shauna Getty: Adult Support Systems is a customer contact center designed specifically for the adult industry. We provide customer support via live chat, email and telephone. Our management staff has more than 25 years of collective sales and customer service management experience.

Excellent customer service is scarce in the adult industry. Knowing the importance of providing excellent customer support just isn’t enough. You also have to know how to provide it — which we do. Many of us have spent the majority of our adult lives dedicated to providing service that exceeds our customers’ expectations.

Many businesses don’t know how to properly support their customers, or just can’t be bothered to do it themselves. That’s where we come in. We do know how, and it’s what we live and breathe.

In addition to software-assisted support via email, live chat and telephone call, we also provide daily data capture and analysis so you can see how well we are performing and what your customers are contacting us about.

What convinced you to start a company offering a traditionally mainstream service in adult?

Adult Support Systems was started when we saw just how underrepresented customer service was in the adult industry. We started by offering customer support to the customers of our own dating site, and were surprised to see just how much a little support increased our customer retention.

As we got busier, it was apparent that we needed to hire a management staff. We hired the right people, who brought with them an extensive background in call-center management. This knowledge and expertise was applied to drive our [dating site’s] customer retention even higher.

Not long after that, we did a little digging and realized that many adult entertainment companies had little or no support for their customers. Providing a service for these businesses was a natural next step for us.

What special skills are required in your business?

Our management staff represents a broad base of expertise in customer service and sales management experience, and all have a background in call center management. We have built award-winning sales and support teams for some of North America’s top Fortune 500 companies.

We know how to hire the right people and offer ongoing sales and customer service training. This keeps our employees fresh, well educated and dedicated to providing the best support money can buy. All of our customer service reps have extensive customer service backgrounds.

We started by offering support to our own dating site, so we also have a good understanding of this particular customer base and its needs. No matter the industry, though, any customer really just wants to feel special. They want to know they’re giving their money to a company that cares about them.

How do your clients benefit?

Many of our clients have noticed an immediate increase in customer retention upon utilizing our services. We have also found that many of our clients are surprised to learn why their customers are cancelling their services: What they think is happening is not what’s happening at all. The only way businesses have of tracking the reasons for customer abandonment is to ask customers why they want to leave. Often, there’s a quick fix, and it makes a huge difference.

What are some of the unique situations your people have resolved?

That’s a tough one. We run in to one-of-a-kind situations all the time.

One of our clients is a dating site, and we sometimes receive calls from members who are upset because they are not getting any responses to the emails they send to other members.

When this happens, our reps take the time to review the customer’s profile with them and offer suggestions to make their personal profile more attractive to the members they are reaching out to. The reps also review the emails the member has sent and offer suggestions to help the member grab the attention of the people that interest them.

This is often very successful, and members have called us back to thank us for the help.