On their 8th year anniversary, today, eHarmony sent an email announcement to all its members that they are taking off the “Hold” feature. The hold feature was introduced more than six years ago as a third option for dealing with matches — a halfway house between communicating further and closing the match permanently, versus just leaving the match hanging. Among the issues that eHarmony Blog and other customers raised about the “Hold” feature are:
- Putting matches on hold totally blocks them from sending you a response.
- It gives the illusion to the person putting his match on hold that his match will receive a notice (she won’t), see that she was put on hold (you don’t bump up in her Recent Activity list), and possibly prompting a response (she can’t).
- Starting from the “My Matches” screen, it takes FOUR mouse clicks to put EACH match on hold. A person needs an extraordinary amount of patience to put several matches on hold in one sitting.
- eHarmony sends no reminder to re-open the match. Millions have been put on hold and then forgotten. The other person can’t send one either.
- Members who have put people on hold because of missing answers or photos get no notice or email when answers and photos have been posted.
As you can see, this feature has been falling short in the last six years.
Across the years, many members have developed creative uses and tricks for this communication feature. For example, for clearing Nudges. For example, to compel someone to show her photo or to finish his About Me profile. Well, everything has an ending.
What is still missing on the site is the Availability-o-meter or a “vacation / statusboard” feature.
Will communication improve because they took off the Hold feature? Tell us your opinion in the comments area.
UPDATE: Oh yes, removing the “on hold” feature is on hold. No irony there.
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