It was January 2019 when Rick first joined us in Thailand to find the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He surprised us all with his happy smile, down-to-earth attitude, and limited expectation. Perhaps the biggest surprise was his total of lack of preparation on the search that lay ahead.
When he checked into his hotel that Thursday lunchtime he had no idea of exactly which women he wanted to date. He was the proverbial blank canvas. At that point, we had 4000 women available as profiles on our website. Like all our clients, Rick was time-poor and cash-rich on this trip. 4000 women were too many so we went back to basics and applied the parameters that most men search on. Rick was 45 at the time, so we set that as his maximun age. The sweet spot for a lady in our service was and always will be 30-35 years old. Over 85% of our brides meet their future husbands between those ages. We still had too many women for Rick to choose from. The next most common parameter is existing children so we left out of his list women with children. Finally to get the list to a manageable size we searched for women in Bangkok. So after about an hour we had a list of 250 women who were in Rick’s ideal age range, actively searching for a foreign husband, were living in Bangkok, and did not have children. This list was 193 women. Then Rick had to make some choices based purely on his subjective opinion of the profiles he saw. One scroll through that search and Rick had said yes to 43 women and no to 150.
This entire exercise took 3.5 hours. 4,000 potential brides reduced to a hand-picked list of 43. One of our team was with Rick at the hotel feeding his preferences back to the office. Rick checked into his hotel at 2 pm, made his first date request at 3,45pm, and met his first lady that night at 7pm just by using our female facing support team in Bangkok.
Rick’s first date was very pleasant but both he and the lady realised quite quickly that they could be friends but not much more. Rick met his second lady on the Friday and it was love at first sight for her. Rick liked her but after talking to the team decided he needed to meet more ladies. His third date changed his life..
On the Saturday morning, Rick had planned to meet 2 ladies that day.12 noon for lunch and 6pm for his first Saturday night out in Downtown Bangkok. When Apple walked into the appointed place for lunch on Saturday with one of our translators it was love at first sight. By 4pm, Rick had signed himself off tour with us and had made plans to go to Chantanaburi to meet the family .
While we do not recommend zero preparation as a strategy, it shows what can happen. 10 years later, Rick and Apple are happily married and living in Wisconsin USA. His story regularly features in our staff training so that everyone in our company can see why their roles are so customer-centric and the joy our work creates.
Couples for life: Rick and Apple
It was 18 January 2019 when Rick walked through the arrival gates at Bangkok Airport to be picked up by our transport team. Within two hours he was in his hotel room and meeting with one of the staff. Rick had come on one of our 7-day tours to find the love of his life. Within 45 minutes of meeting our team member the guru had summoned to ricks hotel room in order to assist with the search. Rick had endlessly scoured our website to try to find the perfect profile of the woman he wanted to meet. Almost as soon as he arrived he realised that 90 percent of his effort had been wasted because not every woman he wanted to meet wanted to meet him. He felt a little dejected until our dating consultant put it out to him that 10% of the women he wanted to meet actually did want to meet him.
Meanwhile, in Chantanaburi, Thailand, Apple was opening up for her boss in the flower shop where she was a sales assistant. At about 10:30 AM her phone rang. It was a Thursday morning and Apple was looking forward to her family event in Bangkok on the Saturday night some 500 kilometers away. some five months previously apple had received a phone call from one of our recruiting team to ask if she wanted to be a member of our website. she said yes as there were very few formalities and so she became a member. later apple told us that she had completely forgotten she was a member of our website until that fateful morning. Apple was due to catch the late-night bus on Friday from Chantanaburi So that she could attend the family gathering on the Saturday evening in Bangkok. Our staff member told her that there was a client in town who wanted to meet her. When could she come to Bangkok? unsurprisingly apple told the truth and said she could be there for Saturday lunchtime but why did this man want to meet her she could not speak any English. no problem shared our staff as a translator will be provided. The meeting was set for Saturday lunchtime.
At about Noon on the Saturday our guru took Rick to the meeting and then went back to the office to handle other admin matters relating to Rick’s tour. Both The translator and Apple were waiting and the date started. Rick’s evening date was with the most popular lady in the agency at 6 pm. Most first dates tank a maximum of 2 Hours. when nothing had been heard from Rick apple or the translator at 3:00 PM the translator was contacted for an update. their response was the couple are still together and getting on very well. 4:00 PM same message and again at 4:30 PM. By this stage, our guru was getting a little nervous. he only had 90 minutes to get Rick back to his hotel changed and ready for the 6:00 PM date. at 4:45 PM the call came through from the translator. please cancel everything we have made a couple and Rick is going to Chantanaburi In the morning with Apple to start a new life. By 4 55 PM our guru was at the table checking with Rick that he knew exactly what he was doing. In less than 48 hours in Thailand Rick had completely changed his life.
Sometimes things just happen this way in the international introductions arena. Is it common? No but it can happen. At the time they met apple had a teenage daughter. some 10 years later that young lady has now got a college degree from an Ivy League university and is a citizen of the USA. Just one of the many success stories for Rick, for apple, her daughter and our team.