Part 1: Ediets, anonymous dieters and customer feedback

First of all, what was the idea behind eDiets.com?
eDiets.com is revolutionizing the weight-loss/diet industry by providing the best, most effective business model focused on personalization, convenience and privacy. We offer the most all-inclusive weight-loss and diet services within the marketplace, while providing an interactive community for our members, which they utilize to improve and maintain a better overall lifestyle.

Ediets.com provides numerous benefits to its subscribers, including on-line support from health professionals. Do you feel this interactive approach is an essential factor in attracting subscribers?
Absolutely, for both attracting new subscribers and retaining current subscribers. Rather than simply disseminating diet and nutrition-related information to our members, albeit customized, our members are further enabled and encouraged to not only interact with on-staff dietitians, psychologists and other health professionals, but each other as well. Interactive, personalized support is the key to a successful weight-loss program.

Constantly being in touch with other people who understand how difficult dieting can be, and that have the same goals and objectives, is an important factor for maintaining one's motivation and stamina. This is why the eDiets.com "Support Central" area - Support Boards, Chats, Online Meetings, Mentor Programs, Polls, and other interactive features - is so important.

In addition, eDiets.com is a highly cost effective approach to dieting, particularly as compared to an in-person session or sessions with a registered dietitian/nutritionist.

Do you feel that the anonymity of the Internet is a benefit to your subscribers? If so, was that part of the original idea for the site?
Yes, and yes. Dieting is an extremely personal event in a person's life, and many shudder at the thought of public weigh-ins and/or group meeting sessions. Facilitating a member's ability to remain anonymous while interacting through our Support Center features, as well as with our member support hotline, is an absolutely integral part of the eDiets program. That has been a benefit of our core offering since the very beginning.

We understood the power and uniqueness of the Internet in relation to dieting back in the commercial Web's infancy. And we developed our service accordingly from the onset. In addition, the privacy of our member's personal information is heavily guarded. All of the information that each member enters into his or her personal profile remains completely private. Only members can access their own private, password-protected files.

One of the challenges of running an e-business is coming up with a user-friendly site while continually introducing new ideas and innovations. Given that, how often do you change the features on your site?
eDiets is an ever-evolving service that continually strives to enhance its offering(s) to meet, and even exceed, the needs and expectations of our members. Content on both our publicly accessible and private members only sites are continually refreshed, sometimes daily, particularly the "news" sections.

New features and functionality are added to the site quite regularly, as there are always new concepts being tested and current concepts being continually refined and improved upon.

We seek to offer new, fresh, compelling and useful diet, nutrition, fitness, beauty and overall wellness content to our members and newsletter subscribers on a very regular basis, since many subscribers visit our site daily.

How much do you rely on customer feedback in designing the features of your site?
Quite extensively, in fact. We have dedicated "Member Services" personnel who interact with members both via email and our online forums daily. They keep a "pulse" on our community in terms of both their satisfaction with features and program currently established, as well as other ideas and concepts mentioned and/or requested by members but that have not yet been developed.

We even have a "Suggestion Box" bulletin board that encourages members to submit their feedback on how to improve eDiets. In addition, we continually run member polls and online surveys to garner community feedback regarding our programs and services, again so that we can continue to improve and refine the products and services we offer.

Member satisfaction is the benchmark for member acquisition, retention and referrals, and we listen closely to our current and prospective members and take their feedback quite seriously.

Continued...