eHarmony’s Biggest Flaw. (And how they can fix it.)

In my original blog, I’ve written a lot of advice on how guys can get better results from eHarmony.

And, although I’ve often been critical of some of their services, I’ve been pretty restrained in my criticism of the eHarmony system itself.

After all, my goal was to help guys do better on eHarmony. And telling folks that “Your failure is all eHarmony’s fault” would prevent many guys from making changes that could lead to their happiness with the eHarmony service.

But, yes, I have one major criticism.

The problem is not the personality matching system. This is what makes eHarmony unique. And, in my experience, it does successfully narrow the field to folks that I stand a better chance of getting along with.

The problem is in what happens after the match is made. It’s because eHarmony’s guided communication system assumes that attraction is a left-brained activity, much like it’s personality matching algorithm.

It’s not.

As it stands, the guided communication process helps it’s members come up with reasons to avoid meeting each other. Rather than helping it’s members explore the commonalities that they may share.

And it encourages people to openly discuss topics that, in my opinion, can only be shared after a sense of attraction and basic comfort is established.

Bottom-line? It needs a major rewrite.

And, in my infinite generosity… I’ll begin a draft of a new “Guided Communication System” in my next article.

(This article also appears in Scott’s blog My Life Cracked)

Do you like this article? Post a comment on Facebook

What others are reading right now

Comments 17

Just a Guy wrote:
While I agree with your premise, Scott, I have to disagree with you on the motivation. I’d actually be willing to attribute malice to their unwillingness to change the system as it stands – after all, they’re not in the business of matching people up, but in the business of making people think they are getting hooked up with others while extracting subscription fees for as long as possible.

Cynical? Who, me?

Seriously, I don’t think they set out to add those little land mines on purpose from the beginning. But that they exist, and keep people subscribed to the site instead of actually meeting people pads their bottom line, and I doubt they have any incentive to really change the way the system works.
Posted 17 Feb 2009 at 7:05 am ¶
Scott Grey wrote:
Actually, I think the current communication scheme is an example of misguided intentions, rather than marketing strategy.

If it’s marketing strategy – it’s a poor one. When casino owners want loyal customers, they don’t create games that NEVER pay. They create games that give small rewards… just enough to make them think that they have a chance of winning.

Same with online dating. I think that one of the reasons I stuck with eHarmony was the constant feeling of, “That was close… maybe if I stick with it a little longer.”

Folks who initiate communication and never get positive responses? They usually quit. Quickly. And that’s bad for the bottom line.
Posted 17 Feb 2009 at 9:50 am ¶
David Evans wrote:
I am not a big fan of the current crop of guided communication features on any sites. How many people bail out during the middle of the process? It’s the same problem with abandoned shopping carts on e-commerce sites. I would rather see women given more powerful tools to restrict inbound emails from men.
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 7:18 am ¶
Pyke wrote:
You (the site owner and the customer) have to figure out what you want guided communication to do: get people talking, or get people eliminating.

Which of these two has a higher perceived value to the customer?
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 7:58 am ¶
Fernando Ardenghi wrote:
Perhaps you had only analyzed eHarmony.

If you had used other online dating sites offering compatibility matching methods (like True, PerfectMatch, Chemistry, Yahoo!Personals -WeAttract-, PlentyOfFishChemistryPredictor, Be2, Ulteem -Meetic-, Parship, you would have noticed that the problem is exactly the personality matching system!

Those sites could reach “as low as” 3 / 4 persons high compatible per 1,000 persons, so in a 10,000,000 persons database, there are as many as 30,000 / 40,000 persons to contact/date, that means a whole precision less than anyone could achieve by searching on one’s own!!!! Their Compatibility Tests are only fueled by big marketing budgets and not by serious scientific evidence. No one had proved its method matches persons who will have more stable and satisfying relationships than couples matched by chance, astrological destiny, personal preferences, searching on one’s own, or other technique as the control group; with low ‘divorce rates’ (e.g. after 2, 5, 10 years of ‘marriage’).
Those compatibility matching methods are like piston engine airplanes.

Online dating sites should had killed offline dating proposals (chains, professional matchmakers, etc) since some years ago, but offline proposals are still alive and with good health.

The Online Dating Industry is waiting for the jet engine airplane, a high precision innovative compatibility matching method, to break sound barrier and kill all other proposals, mainly Off Line Chains. That will be the indicator of Success for the Online Dating Industry.

Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 10:30 am ¶
David Evans wrote:
Fernando, if you talked to any major matchmakers or offline chains you would understand that many people prefer the high-touch of these services.

Tests are not going to drive the industry because nobody can measure success except for what the dating sites tell us.

Tests are an integral part of the online dating experience. Look at eHarmony and Match, both successful, one relies of compatability testing, the other does not.

There is room for several different business models, instead of harping on compatibility, why not deliver something dating sites can use?
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:29 pm ¶
eharmonyblog wrote:
Fernando, let’s leave the efficacy of the personality matching algorithm to another discussion. Let’s discuss the article’s premise, which is “the guided communication process helps it’s members come up with reasons to avoid meeting each other.”

Allegedly, it opposes what we all came here to do in the first place.
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 1:28 pm ¶
Fernando Ardenghi wrote:
The guided communication process helps it’s members come up with reasons to avoid meeting each other because it is designed to narrow even more the field the persons you give a better chance of getting along with.

Why don’t you try PerfectMatch, Chemistry, Yahoo!Personals, PlentyOfFishChemistryPredictor, Be2, Ulteem, Parship, etc, to see if you find the same problems?

Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:21 pm ¶
Scott Grey wrote:
Final word to Fernando: I’ve used standard personals services. For me, I got tired of the “Nice meeting you… if you run into the woman whose picture and personality were accurately described in the profile, I’d like to meet her sometime” problem. But, that’s my opinion – if you’re happy with “standard” services, stick with ‘em!

Pyke: eHarmony tried selling itself as “Meet your future wife through eHarmony, or be doomed to relationship hell” when it started. Over time, they’ve moved it to, “Discover what it’s like to share chemistry with someone you’re deeply compatible with.” I assume that they’ve continued the latter campaign because it’s what most people WANT to see.

But if you want to use harsh screens in eHarmony pre-date communications, you could STILL do it in my scheme. You’d make up your own 3 questions in the new “phase 3″, or screen as much as you want to while you’re in open communication.

(I don’t suggest “how to solve communication hell”. I figure eHarmony might WANT to keep people paying in order to continue pre-date communication. I’ll stick to stuff that eHarmony MIGHT want to do. Maybe. And, if not, well, writing articles is kind of fun.)
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 3:55 pm ¶
LavenderLover wrote:
Hi Scott,
Great idea, but I can tell you that most people (most guys in my opinion) would either not answer the “interested” question, or simply will answer C “Think it over”.

In my area, I feel like the competition is fierce, and guys are always looking for the next best girl. Keeping all options open!

I mean, it takes less than 1 minute to answer those 5 multiple choice questions. If you answer them you are interested, if you close you are not, if you check the profile and do neither you are either A ‘thinking about it’ or B ‘waiting to see if anything better pans out’, if you do neither of the above, then you are a non-subscriber that has stopped checking mail.

I used to wait for guys to contact me. Now I don’t, if they don’t contact me on the get-go (which if it happens we almost always get to OC), I contact them in a day or so. If they don’t answer in a week, I close them.

Some ask me to reopen and I do, but usually they are not motivated to answer a thing!!! If you saw a profile that you liked you will NOT just sit there and not answer.

I think the ‘activation’ energy is LOW already and your idea won’t fix it.

I give you an example. I was matched twice with the same guy in a matter of 2 weeks, he is a vegan and I don’t say that in my profile but I am too. The first time around I waited and after 2-3 weeks, his profile dissapeared. Then we got matched again and I contacted him, he closed me ‘physical distance’ (I guess 1 hr is too far! even thought he considers NY close (which is 2 hrs for him!)).

Then I do a test on Chemistry.com and I guess people review profiles and in order to get more they have to rate them. Well on the third day, I get the SAME guy and what is his rating “very interested” (he had to KNOW it was me, same pictures!). So I got back to eHarmony and give him a final message so he can reopen, but of course I never hear from him.

So there you go, VERY interested yet unwilling to ‘meet’ me. So what gives??

I think the pictures are a killer. People want physical attraction from photos and if you don’t have that, the ‘activation’ energy is so large that nothing ever happens.

My idea, eliminate pictures completely. Make sure the MHCS are shared automatically at the same time after the first questions are exchanged. And in have like a minimum of a few e-mails before pictures become open. The only issue is that probably all of us will imagine that person much better than they actually look and there is no instant gratification with pictures that is so ingrained in the US culture.

Great topic!!

Lav
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 4:25 pm ¶
David Evans wrote:
Scott, OKCupid has user-selected questions, similar I believe to what you are talking about in Phase 3.

10% of alpha males are responsible for 90% of all communication on dating sites. Think about that for a minute.

Most sites pay close attention to the amount of emails sent as a key measure of success. If you’re just browsing and not communicating they’re not doing their job.

The concept of close-reopen-close is problematic. Reputation is key and dating sites are slowly coming around to this. Expect to see some sites implement reputation/trust ratings in 2009, which will change the game considerably.

Frustrating that this blog has more traffic than mine and all you talk about is eHarmony
Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 5:11 pm ¶
Scott Grey wrote:
Lavender: I feel for you. For a long time, I felt the same way. Unfortunately, the internet does NOT make people more open to relationships – if anything, people become MORE judgmental over the internet. And if people only show mild interest after reading your profile… that’s what needs work. I’m sure you’d get some good feedback from the eHarmony Cracked Google Group, even if it’s not as active as it used to be.

Dave – My article on how I’d rewrite “Phase 3″ is coming.
Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 7:52 am ¶
Pyke wrote:
If the current campaign is still “Discover what it’s like to share chemistry with someone you’re deeply compatible with” then I can see how Scott’s proposed changes have merit.

The site’s guided communication should assist this discovery process, not thwart it.

(But whether this is what the members (young or old, male or female, divorced or never-married) want, though, I don’t know.)

Unfortunately, Scott, you and I both observe that it’s way easier for eHarmony to change marketing campaigns and marketing materials than to the change the site’s computer programming.

(I wonder, off-topic: do the masterminds of these marketing campaigns have transition plans? I mean, I can market a mule first as a donkey, then as a horse, but I mustn’t forget to refit the animal, too. Otherwise the new customers, horse-riders, will be pissed as hell when they see the ass they bought.)

What do you guys think? When you go on a first date, do you explore commonalities or do you observe for red-flags?
Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 10:15 am ¶
Scott Grey wrote:
Personally? It’s not quite an either/or thing.

If there’s no interest/spark/intrigue, I’m not even LOOKING for red flags. If I see one anyway, that usually kills it – and she’s in the “friend zone”, if that.

When I’m starting to tell myself, “Maybe she might be worth getting to know a little better”, I might be a little more observant – but I don’t actively dig at spots that may be sore.

Digging for red flags? Pre-second-date, at the quickest.
Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 6:30 am ¶
LavenderLover wrote:
Hey Scott,

You said “And if people only show mild interest after reading your profile… that’s what needs work”. I tend to disagree, I do get a lot of contacts from members and do get bombarded every time I have started a membership on Match. With eH, I have to say is the non-members who don’t contact me, and the ultra-marathoner members who close me, other than that I think I am doing OK.

eH didn’t have THAT many ‘non-members’ before, now it is ‘out of control’.

I have had people look at my profile and my friends say it is ’100%’ me, strangers ‘like’ my profile, but one thing I have learnt: If you adjust your profile based on what people tell you, you could end up being less you. Heck if the point is to attrack people regardless, then I agree, do it. But if you really want to find that person that ‘gets’ you, he/she will ‘get’ your profile, corny jokes and all!! Don’t get me wrong, I still send out my profile for comments.

I go out the old fashioned way also, but I think is easier to ‘market’ yourself more extensively on the web. The more the merrier!

Lav
Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 6:55 am ¶
Anna wrote:
As someone who is one of the eharmony successes I can truly say that I appreciated the guided communication process massively. My problem with dating was that I never thought about things without involving my heart so I let myself fall for someone before I had thought the whole thing through logically.

I remember one guy’s answer to the question: “What are you looking forward to most about marriage?” was sex. I closed him out in seconds. It shouted to me that this guy’s mind was not quite on the same wavelength. No shame in wanting sex, just not quite what you put on the first answer to a question of someone you don’t know.

I had well over 300 matches before my husband appeared in my match box so to speak. Each one of them taught me something different, sometimes the photo was enough for me to say no. Sometimes it wasn’t until the essay questions that I realised that this person was just a no way. I am so glad of all the ones that I had to close or that closed me out. Why? I was able to learn something each time and each time I was a little smarter to how the game worked. So by the time the right person came along I was well tuned in. It is frustrating and painful when it doesn’t work out, not to mention disappointing. However, when it does, eharmony is worth every penny!
Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 10:19 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
I like the guided communication and wish all dating sites did this. I hate spending countless hours writing emails just to not have the girls respond because they aren’t interested.

With the guided communication, it takes about 30 seconds to send the multiple choice questions. If the girl doesn’t respond I have only wasted 30 seconds… if the girl does respond, I know she is somewhat interested and worth the time to send an email.
Posted 19 Apr 2012 at 7:04 pm ¶

eHarmony Blog.com

Start a new discussion »