Dating apps have become very popular in recent years. A survey by Statista found that approximately 30% of U.S. adults had used a dating app as of 2021, up from 11% in 2013. While dating apps are getting more and more popular, more fraudsters are trying to abuse them. At the same time, another business concept, business continuity, is also going through solid growth. Many dating companies start to consider business continuity as a necessary solution to security concerns. We asked the experts from a popular service for Portland dating and they shared how business continuity makes dating apps more reliable and secure.
What is business continuity?
Business continuity is the term used to describe the ability of an organization to survive a crisis and keep its critical operations and services in case a disruption or disaster happens. The crisis can be caused by natural forces or human actions, such as cyber-attacks, power outages, or other unexpected events. Business continuity is aimed at ensuring the proper functioning and fast recovery of an organization. The idea is to minimize the negative effects on employees, customers, and stakeholders after a disruption to operations happens.
Business continuity includes creating strategies, plans, and procedures, as well as conducting regular testing, training, and maintenance. All these steps are needed to spot and mitigate risks and protect the necessary business functions and assets.
How can dating app companies use business continuity?
For dating app companies, business continuity can include developing strategies to tackle server outages and cyber-attacks, preventing the negative effect of disruptions on user privacy and user experience. What can dating companies do in particular?
Invest in IT infrastructure
Investing in a powerful IT infrastructure is a common measure while introducing business continuity into a dating company. This step can encompass redundant servers and backup power systems needed to maintain the constant availability of the app. In addition, dating companies can choose to carry out regular testing and maintenance of their IT infrastructure. This activity helps them identify and tackle threats in advance.
Contingency planning
One more option to ensure dating app survival in terms of disruption is to make a contingency plan. Such a plan includes the steps that should be taken by the company before a problem becomes an emergency. There can be a plan for responding to natural disasters in countries where this app operates. Or this plan can explain what to do to protect user data and profiles against scammers and fraudsters. Some protocols can define actions against data breaches or other security incidents.
Extra security measures
Another crucial step in ensuring business continuity for a dating app company is taking additional security measures, such as encryption, firewalls, and user authentication. This way, the company improves the security of user profiles from cyber threats, which is crucial for any dating service.
Introduce safety buttons
A good way to quickly learn about a potential fraud is to let dating app users be your loyal helpers in this fight. Dating app users can quickly report any fraudulent activity, block suspicious users, or report strange behavior of other members. Some dating apps introduce “Panic” buttons, which let users quickly call emergency services or a predefined emergency contact if something unsafe starts to happen on the date. Tinder is one of the popular apps that introduced such functionality. It helps users feel safer while interacting with the app and dating, and this way it contributes to business continuity.
Extra measures for avoiding fake profiles
Protecting the dating app from fraudsters is also a part of business continuity for dating app owners. Safety features can include extra measures for the verification of user identities and backgrounds. These steps can decrease fraudulent activity and build user trust.
Proper customer support
Customer support is crucial to improving user satisfaction and at the same time quickly identifying issues and this way preventing true disasters and disruptions. This measure can include establishing a 24/7 support team, developing detailed user FAQs, and creating user-friendly interfaces that allow users to easily report issues or problems with the app.
To sum up, the growth of dating apps has also raised security concerns related to online dating. Business continuity seems a viable solution to keep a seamless functioning of a dating service.