1. eHarmony AU review: in brief

If you’re tired of wading through endless profiles, or spending hours on message exchanges that go nowhere, then eHarmony could be the alternative you are looking for. eHarmony gives you quality over quantity. It makes your matches special and encourages its members to really commit to getting to know one and other. It’s a serious matchmaking site that claims to have created thousands of happy marriages around the world.

We have conducted a thorough review and testing procedure with eHarmony to find out for ourselves how good the service in Australia is and share those experiences with you here.

2. eHarmony AU Snapshot Test

The eHarmony AU test thoroughly explores all elements of eHarmony. To produce an all-round overview of the quality of the product we made a profile on the site and used it as an everyday user (man seeks woman). Next we looked at all features on the site and initiated some first communications.

We checked eHarmony AU’s reputation online, looking through customer reviews and forums to understand how people respond to the product.

First impressions of eHarmony AU

eHarmony is an attractive site and the minute you land on it, it's clear that the design quality is a cut above the average. The registration is very personal and full of encouraging pictures and statements. Good news as to register does take time! eHarmony analyses a full range of personality and character traits to find you the right people. It aims to deliver matches that are really well suited to you. According to eHarmony, the process that does all this comes courtesy of years of research with Oxford University.

Picture: Encouraging you to keep working through the registration pages - eHarmony

In the end it's all about saving you time. By putting time in up front to create a full psychological analysis and profile, afterwards you get to save time, as the eHaromony algorithm will seek out the right one for you. In other words you don't have to search for your ideal match, with eHarmony they will actually come to you!

Contact Test

To get an opinion of the amount of members online, we ran a contact count assessment. Dating portals come in many different shapes, but always the most important concern for the punter is how many connections he or she has. How many folk get in touch and how many people react to conversation openers. Our interaction mark produces a value against this essential measure for every dating service we evaluate. eHarmony AU did pretty well in this test. There were stacks of members online and it looked like a reputable spread of users across the region.

Profile quality of eHarmony AU

It is disappointing that you can only view your profiles photos once you have become a Premium Member. However, this really is the only disappointing thing about the profiles and matches we viewed on the site. Generally they were full of information and the response rate was really high. Lots to talk about and good quality conversations.

Are there any fake users on eHarmony?

Scammers can be a difficulty for nearly all dating companies and often the test is not whether they have a problem, but how bad it is. However, our impression of eHarmony AU was very reassuring in this regard. eHarmony runs a pretty good system of profile approval and most of the profiles gave the impression of being real. 

3. eHarmony AU Features and Profiles

eHarmony is a detailed and extensive website that offers you a full spread of features and functionalities. There are a lot of search possibilities and a lot of information you can fill out on your profile.

To begin with the eHarmony experience you do need to set aside half an hour to finish their lengthy registration test. As we have already mentioned, this should be a time saver in the end. The questions range from things about your hobbies and interests to questions on your character 'how generous do you think you are?' 'How outgoing are you?' etc.

When you eventually gain access to the main part of the site you find even more optional profile fields to fill in and the chance to put up lots of photos onto your account. Next it's a question of viewing your match list and kicking off some communications. There is a limit to what you can do without becoming a Premium Member and unfortunately this includes viewing your matches pictures. On the plus side the profiles are well filled out and there is a lot of information you can read for free.

Search

There is an extensive search functionality and you can determine who you want to be matched with based on: Age, income, spirituality, distance, ethnicity.

Picture: income search fields - eHarmony 

What if

The What if function means you can get passed the matches you are sent and see more of the eHarmony database.Basically you can choose your own matches rather than have them chosen for you. Nice.

Picture: What If feature - eHarmony

Book of You

Get a really detailed insight into your own personality with the Book of You. Free to view and full of ideas about who you are and how others view you.

Picture: Book of You - eHarmony

Secure Call

This is an in house internet calling facility that allows you to chat to you're matches through the site. No need to number or even skype id swap.

Picture: Secure Call feature - eHarmony

4. eHarmony AU Customer Service

Customer care is a very critical issue with online dating sites. The degree to which sites deal effectively with the troubles and problems their customers have varies largely from one site to another. How simple is it to get in touch with customer support? How speedily do they deal with customer questions. Does the firm use auto renewal and how easy is it to cancel this?

Contacting Customer Services on eHarmony AU

There is a very extensive FAQ area on eHaromny . Here you can find the answers to lots of the question you are likely to have. If you need further assistance they offer you different ways of contacting them, depending on the nature of your issue. Sometimes they will request an e-mail to a individual department, but more often they point you in the direction of a customer support telephone line.

eHarmony AU layout

eHarmony is a real piece of art work. Throughout the entire site the attention to detail and quality of design is remarkable. This quality of design says a lot about eHarmony's philosophy overall.

Picture: Example of striking layout - eHarmony

Mobile use at eHarmony AU

eHarmony has a fully developed mobile app and its normal service is compatible with mobile browsers. However, this is all for use once registered. Completing the registration process is definitely something to be done on a reasonably large screen.

5. Is eHarmony AU a good deal?

Most dating services hand out a - free of charge - introduction to their product, but to use the service properly and really communicate with others you nearly always have to pay for Premium Membership. eHarmony AU is no exception and to communicate with your partner recommendations, you have to pay a fee. We are not going to quibble with the need for this. Customers always need to pay if they want to use a useful service. Instead, we concentrate on how eHarmony AU performs on a ‘value for money’ reckoning. Is it good value relative to other sites on the market?

*these prices were current at the time of writing, but may change

We recommend you choose the six month deal. It’s a significant up front price, but you’ll be able to really settle down and take your time to use the service well.