I am assuming all Monzo customers will be receiving this email, but thought I’d make a topic on it. Interesting stance. Assume this would be the reason for removing the “Chat with us” option for all users.
Email below:
We wanted to give you an update on some changes we’re making to our customer support hours for UK personal accounts.
From 6 July we’ll have 24/7 service for urgent chats and calls (for example if your card’s been stolen, you can’t make an urgent payment, you think you’ve been the victim of fraud, or you’re in a vulnerable position).
For everything else, our customer service team will be available between 7am and 8pm UK time. You can always find answers to most of your questions in the ‘Help’ section of our app.
This change means we can focus on fixing people’s most urgent problems overnight quickly, and leave less pressing problems to the daytime, like updating personal details or asking about Monzo features.
It shouldn’t be a huge change for most of our customers (only 12% of people contact us overnight, and most of these queries aren’t urgent), but it means we can make our urgent customer service even better. And we’ll be doing more to build Monzo so that it works so well you never need to contact us at all!
Here’s a summary of how and when you can contact us:
For most questions, we’ve got answers in the app to solve the problem immediately, which means you can get the help you need even faster.
For anything urgent, if you’re in a vulnerable position, or if you want to make a complaint, you can call us or chat in-app 24/7.
If your question isn’t urgent, we’ll be around to answer it between 7am and 8pm via call or chat.
Not surprised, it’s just formalising what’s already become the norm - with only 12% contacting overnight - and also pushing more people to use the help notes.
This should hopefully improve the quality of the customer support that is received.
I rarely contact support, so hopefully this is good.
Seems reasonable if the self help articles are clearer and used. Things like disputing transactions can be done in app but I suspect many people still head straight for the chat or phone option first.
Not really fussed. After about 6PM most support requests seem to be ignored until the next day unless they’re urgent, and if they require help from a specialist then you’re basically waiting till the next working day anyway.
I do think chat has been too accessible and there’s a lot of evidence on this forum of people asking things that probably should just be asked on here only.
I do however think that there should be two clear tiers for chat; a ticket system for when you don’t mind a response in a day or two, and a chat system that actually is chat. At the moment it’s a mixture of the two and people’s expectations aren’t very well managed. I’ve never needed an urgent response and would have always been happy to wait several hours for my response knowing that if I did need something urgently, it would be treated as such. (Am I right in thinking this is how Starling operate?)
These changes are probably a positive step but I do hope it doesn’t stop users knowing how to get in touch in the right way at the right time - we’ve all seen lots of questions recently on here about how to even contact support.
Not really. Not all banks operate 24/7 help other than chatbots and online help. As long as urgent queries remain dealt with, I don’t have a problem with this. And I don’t think this means you can’t contact them through in app chat, just that you’re query won’t be answered out of those hours unless it’s urgent.
Right now, I’d rather Monzo focused on keeping their staff safe.
Well you either pay for cheap labour abroad to do it overnight (as was the case), now the queries just just pile up for expensive UK labour. The fundamental problem is the people contacting chat instead of self-help.
