EHarmony

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Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony.

eHarmony is a venture capital funded, marriage-oriented matchmaking website. The company does a great deal of advertising through television and the internet and requires users to complete a detailed compatibility questionnaire. eHarmony was co-founded by Dr. Neil Clark Warren and his son-in-law, former commercial real estate developer Greg Forgatch. Forgatch was eHarmony's founding CEO and President, while Warren is its Chairman of the Board. Dr. Warren's wife, Marylyn, handled eHarmony's PR for several years, but retired in 2005. Greg Waldorf is the current CEO, while Greg Steiner is the current President and COO. eHarmony's services are selective, that is, not all who apply for the service are accepted.

Founding and funding

eHarmony was founded in 2000 with $3 million of Series A funding from Fayez Sarofim & Co. and individual investors. Dr. Warren, an evangelical Christian with strong ties to the conservative Christian community, attributes much of the initial success of eHarmony to its being promoted through James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio show. After having been closely associated with Focus on the Family for four years, in 2005 eHarmony sought to distance itself from the group and Dobson, largely in an effort to broaden the market share of Warren's books and that of eHarmony according to Warren. After Warren publicly distanced himself from Focus on the Family and purchased back the copyright from his earlier books from the organization, Dobson told his radio audience on 26 May 2005, "I introduced Dr. Warren and his books — and eHarmony, more recently — to our listeners specifically because he was and it was decidedly Christian in nature," ... "Dr. Warren is anxious to change that direction. So ... we will go our separate ways ... with reluctance and regret." The services offered by eHarmony are consistent with the values of Conservative Christianity. For example, eHarmony does not offer services to those seeking same-sex partners.

In 2004 eHarmony received the fourth largest venture capital investment of that year from two California-based companies, Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures (Lee, 2004). The investment of $110 million is expected to fund eHarmony's branding process, which includes heavy advertising, and also to provide cash payments to the founders and 114 other individuals associated with the company (Rivlin, 2005).

eHarmony's "Singles Program"

Methodology

eHarmony's services are geared toward those looking for a long term relationship, which is estimated to be 20% of those using online dating services. Dr. Warren's goal is to reduce the divorce rate in America to less than 10% (it is estimated to be 40-50%).

The company boasts to be the internet's number one paid matchmaking service based upon marriages per match. It has rather strict limitations, which Dr. Warren states are solely based on over 35 years of research into successful marriages. Factors "which may limit a user from experiencing eHarmony's matchmaking service to the fullest" include: still being married, 3 or more previous failed marriages resulting in divorce, severe depression and being under the age of 21. These users are immediately disqualified with extended support from the complete profile. eHarmony still extends their community forum, newsletters and customer care to these registrants.

Barring disqualification from the above mentioned criteria, a user who completes an initial personality analysis survey (essentially a personality test developed by Dr. Galen Buckwalter, Director of Research at eHarmony) may then specify a number of additional criteria, "self selects" by which to create a more accurate potential pool of recommended matches. Among the criteria available for the user's specificity are self selected age range, ethnicity, religious affiliation, geographical vicinity, and maternity/paternity status (children living with/children living away/no children). In conjunction with the 436 part profile, this is how all of the matches are delivered. One significant scoring factor is what may be called the honesty factor. This is a psychological profiling technique designed to score the relative honesty of the respondent. This factor is apparently considered by eHarmony as a significant factor in arriving at a good match. Contrary to many other matchmaking services, the user is not allowed to browse through profiles or choose potential matches themselves, and must rely completely on the eHarmony service itself to arrange potential matches. Some people consider this a positive, as it prevents people from 'making the same mistakes' they have made previously when selecting potential dates.

It should also be noted that the sheer number of questions may affect who uses eHarmony. It takes a significant amount of time to answer all the questions. Some believe that this discourages the less serious. Others believe that it discourages people with limited time, though it may argued that someone who can't commit themselves to answering questions about themselves for 30 minutes may not be entirely able to dedicate the years of effort and commitment required of a lasting marriage.

It is also interesting to note that users are not permitted to chose matches based on marriage "experience" (i.e., divorced/widowed) as with other sites. While matches can be presumed to be currently unmarried (as eHarmony only offers matching services to legally single people) there is no option by which a "never-married" user could choose to only receive "never-married" matches, or a widower could request to be matched with a widow, etc.

eHarmony states that 20%, or 1 in 5 respondents are not able to predict with whom the user would best be matched.

Compatibility research

eHarmony's research methods and its models for compatibility matching have not been submitted to any peer-reviewed journals for evaluation and publication. However, eHarmony's research director, Dr. Steve Carter, Ph.D. did present a paper at the 2004, 16th annual American Psychological Society (APS) meeting. In the paper presented, Carter compared eHarmony couples married for more than 5 years with a control group, using the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), a measure of couple satisfaction. The results showed that "Over 90% of eHarmony couples had marriage quality scores which were above average when compared to couples who had begun their relationships elsewhere. eHarmony couples were more than twice as likely to be in highly successful marriages than non-eHarmony couples... Not only are eHarmony couples 35% more likely than other married couples to report that they enjoy spending time together, but we found they are nearly twice as likely to report that their marriages are "extremely happy" or better versus other recently married couples."

eHarmony's selection of a model for statistically choosing the factors to be included in their questionnaires was made using couples who scored in the top quartile of the DAS measure. The use of the DAS to measure outcomes may present a methodological flaw in establishing validity, because the DAS is not independent of eHarmony's models. Using an independent measure of satisfaction would be more convincing. However, eHarmony appears to be the only "matching" service online that has actually conducted either predictive or post hoc research using married couples to create or validate their methods. In fact, this use of empirical data from married couples to create a system for matching singles online is the core of eHarmony's patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,735,568).

Steve Carter also published a column in the APS Observer (the newsletter of the APS), about what it is like to work at eHarmony. This was criticized by some APS readers as an advertisement for the service, without any scientific merit. Other readers pointed out that eHarmony has never published data on how many of their matches do not result in satisfactory marriages, which makes it difficult to evaluate the service's relative value.

Membership demographics

According to press releases and news articles, the eHarmony population is represented by the following:

• more than 13 million users (as of Aug 22, 2005)
• more than 6,000 marriages between members (as of Aug 30, 2004)
• 88% are frustrated with the search for a mate and hope to find a husband or wife through eHarmony (as of Mar 8, 2004)
• 91% had received more than ten potential matches using eHarmony (as of Nov 20, 2003)
• 41% had tried other dating sites first (as of Nov 20, 2003)

Gender

• 42% are male
• 58% are female (Brand Channel, Feb 2005)

Race

• 83% are white (as of Mar 6, 2004)
• 6% are black (as of Mar 6, 2004)
• 4% are Hispanic or Latino (as of Mar 6, 2004)

Socioeconomic

• 46% of users have a bachelor's degree or higher (as of Mar 6, 2004)
• 64% report an income of more than $40,000 (as of Nov 20, 2003)

Religion

• 72% of members belong to a religious group (as of Mar 6, 2004)
• 21% of members identify themselves as "spiritual" (as of Mar 6, 2004)
• 7% say they are neither "religious nor spiritual" (as of Mar 6, 2004)
• Of those identified as religious, 91% say they are Christian; 3% identify themselves as Jewish; and 6% as "other" (as of Mar 6, 2004)

eHarmony's "Marriage Program"

In early 2006 eHarmony released a new Marriage Program designed to assist married couples to enrich their current relationship, or to try to help rescue marriages that may be in distress. In some ways this program is similar to eHarmony's Singles Program, involving questionnaires concerning communication, romance, sex and other topics. A computerized psychological profiling process is another already familiar aspect of the new Marriage Program. The program also offers a series of 12 online videos offering advice and guidance on various topics related to some of the most common types of marital concerns. The price for eHarmony's 'Marriage Program' ranges between $75 and $239, depending on how many program services may or may not be purchased. The first online video is free.

Criticism

Consumer complaints regarding the "Singles Program"

According to Online Dating Magazine, eHarmony's "most annoying feature" is that "once you are paid you can only communicate with other people who have paid." Other negative comments in various web forums include:

• The procedure to unsubscribe as a paying member is complex and leads to errors or undesired credit card charges. Some complain the procedure is unfair or misleading.
• Spending over half an hour answering 258 personal-information questions only to receive a message saying eHarmony cannot provide the person the service. More than 20% of all applicants are routinely disqualified by eHarmony for various reasons. The reasons for rejection fall into three principal categories. According a Washington Post story of May 13, 2007 (They Met Online, but Definitely Didn't Click), the biggest reason for rejection is that the applicant is already married. Nearly one-third of the company's rejects (30%) fall into this category. Others are blocked because they're younger than the minimum application age of 21 (27%) or because the applicant gives inconsistent answers (9%) to eHarmony's 258-question application.
• High fees and too few matches.
• The "My Matches" screen does not distinguish who are paid members (and can reply) and who are inactive (i.e., have not logged in for a long time).
• Lack of same-sex matches.
• Opinions that eHarmony rations out matches to push members to stay beyond the 7-day trial or their current subscription.
• How the site locks down a member's access to his correspondences with his matches when the member ends his paid subscription. Some subscribers avoid this by printing out or copying and pasting their prior communications.
• Dissatisfaction with standard email replies of the site's help desk.
• Consumers have difficulty finding the company's phone number to speak to a live representative. (See contact information in External links section below.)

Lack of Same-Sex Matching Options

Critics note that eHarmony has a conspicuous lack of options for gay and lesbian people seeking a same-sex match. Dr. Warren claims that eHarmony lacks enough data to successfully match gay and lesbian couples; however, critics counter that such a statement implies that, aside from a desire for a same-sex partner, gay and lesbian people are somehow psychologically different from heterosexual people. To date, eHarmony has failed to elaborate on the nature of these alleged psychological differences, or whether or not they are attempting to collect additional data on these differences.

Dr. Warren also states that because same-sex marriage is illegal in most states, eHarmony "doesn't really want to participate in something that's illegal." Critics counter by saying that the illegality of same-sex marriage is irrelevant, and that because same-sex dating and coupling is a perfectly legal activity, there is no sound reason for preventing gay and lesbian people from participating in any internet matching service. Additionally, same-sex marriage was legalized across Canada by the Civil Marriage Act enacted on July 20, 2005 and eHarmony Canada still does not match same-sex couples.

Dr. Warren further claims he hopes that homosexuals will find good matches, and claims to have assisted entrepreneurs looking to build a same-sex site similar to eHarmony; however, he declined to reveal the name of the site whose creators he claims to have advised.

Questionable and/or Unethical Business Practice

Some eHarmony subscribers and users have questioned the website's business practice of closing "Open Communication" between matches once a membership has expired. On the other hand, nothing precludes matches from exchanging alternative contact information (e.g., email addresses, cell phone numbers, etc.) during the period of open communication.

The argument of subscribers is that as a paid subscriber to eHarmony they pay to receive the compatible matches, which the company guarantees during a subscription period. Others point out that few businesses would continue to provide service to customers once they stop paying.

On April 2, 2007, an advocacy group calling itself The National Organization of Short Statured Adults put forth a claim that eHarmony intentionally excluded short statured men from the site. Dr. Neil Clark Warren has admitted that he won't match taller women with shorter men because he believes that's a difference difficult to overcome in a relationship. The group has called for a boycott of the website.

2006 lawsuit

As of March 28, 2006 eHarmony is being sued by John Claassen, an Emeryville, California attorney who claims that his use of the eHarmony dating service has been rejected. Claassen is married, in the final steps of divorce, and California laws state that membership of any service should not be affected by race, marital status, sex, and other basic factors. In its brief, eHarmony contended that California "has established a clear public policy in favor of marital reconciliation," noting that, under the state's Family Code, a judge must not dissolve a marriage "whenever there appears any 'reasonable possibility of reconciliation.'" By May 26, 2006 Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch had denied John Claassen's motion for a preliminary injunction.

eHarmony Parody

The eHarmony commercial produced many parodies including the cox commercial for the DVR where "Entertainmentoligist" Dr. Franklin Sammuel Leonard explains the joys of the DVR along with various couples and the Saturday Night Live commercial skit of "MeHarmony" (and affiliates "HeHarmony" and "SheHarmony").

Competitors (alphabetical)

• FriendFinder
• Match.com
• Meetro
• OKCupid
• PlentyofFish
• Yahoo Personals

External links

• The official eHarmony Homepage
• The eHarmony contact information page
• eHarmony Marriage Homepage
• eHarmony Tips For Men and eHarmony Tips For Women