Feedback on testing energy partnerships

Thanks @Feathers - great feedback! We’re definitely working towards a more personalized offering, with a one-click signup in the app (rather than having to enter data into the flow that we already have) and targeted to people who we have a high confidence they can save money. Fundamentally, we need people to move their energy direct debits over to Monzo to do this properly (and may require asking for a few extra inputs like existing usage / tariff) and then the experience will be significantly better. We’re just a bit early in the current account rollout to have enough energy direct debits moved over to do this well today, but still wanted to get started with the testing. We also plan to surface this more in context (e.g. next to your energy direct debits rather than randomly in your transaction feed). And of course having appropriate controls (e.g. opt-in as you say). Bear with us :wink:

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It’s really pleasing to see that Monzo are partnering with Bulb and Octopus - both great companies that feel very much aligned with one another, and with Bulb.
It’s a great opportunity Monzo seems to be taking to promote renewable energy, something I’m personally passionate about.

I’d like to ask a question that takes this one step further into what Monzo’s policy is on this topic - Would Monzo ever allow for switching in-app to an energy provider which wasn’t providing 100% renewable electricity?

This seems like a great chance to outline an ethical stance for Monzo as a company - promote renewables, help towards decarbonisation and solving climate change.

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So as it happens I need to pick a new energy plan at the moment so have opted to try the Monzo bulb offer, here are my thoughts about the process so far and I’ll update it as I get further towards the switch…

Step 1: Got the link on my phone: image
So its simple, unobtrusive and importantly allows me to get rid of it if I’m not interested. To summarise my thoughts are that this is fine, not sure what the logo is about, maybe either a personalised offers logo or one more relevant to gas/electricity would be helpful.

Step 2: Click the link which takes me here:
image
My thoughts are this are that it gives me more details :+1: telling me exactly what is being offered, why it might be good (including £25 for me and paying any exit fees) and again gives me the option to know more or get rid of it. From this page, I think the most important feature of note for me is that they have told you exactly how much monzo make from it and give you the option to get more info which is +1 for transparency in my book.

Step 3: Tell me more which redirects me to a co-branded bulb site:
image
It’s simple, it works and from then on It was just the normal bulb signup process which was pretty efficient.

Thoughts: The process was extremely simple and at every stage there was an option for more information or to quit the process. That said, I have some further thoughts about what I’d like to see:

  • Feed Notification: I liked the notification but perhaps the graphic could have been more personalised to energy (like the image on the further details page). It was good to be able to tell it to go away on this and every subsequent page.
  • Notification Personalisation: I think that rather than just randomly offering, maybe some clever trickery like saying well if I have a new DD setup for gas/electric now then in 11 months or so I might want this kind of notification when my fixed tariff is coming toward an end. On the flipside I’m probably not looking for one right now If I’ve just set up one of these DD’s.
  • Explanatory Page: I liked the explanatory page, it was very clear about summarising the benefits and how monzo and the user both gain and exactly how much rather than a “we may be paid for referring you” which is unclear.
  • Type Of Offers: I totally agree that monzo should prioritise their ethical stance when getting these offers, I really like how bulb does these things and it would be great for small innovative players like monzo and bulb to partner together more.
  • Referral Fees: So I don’t mind monzo getting a referral fee but everybody has to win, I think it’s only fair that the user gets at least 50% of the referral fee, I’d be annoyed if monzo got £125 and I got £10 for example. I like that it has so far been transparent.
  • Mobile Optimisation: All links should of course be vetted so that you aren’t redirected to non mobile-friendly website.

Those are just my thoughts, I’ll update further with how the switch goes.

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Great question @tomkiss - I’m not sure we’d want to take a strong stance about this in particular - our goal is to provide value and transparency to our customers and let them choose, provided the partners we work with meet our minimum standards for things like customer service, integration etc.

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Thanks for the feedback @maxjwalker!

:rotating_light: shameless plug :rotating_light: I’ve just created a Wiki to gather together all of the details about the partnerships so far, including solutions to some of the concerns / requests that user’s have raised..

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I just got a popup about this in Google Now. Very cool feature, so long as this development isn’t distracting you guys from rolling out those current account features :wink:

What else can we expect to see in terms of new cool things in the next 12 months?

A roadmap isn’t yet clear, but we’re thinking about building some integrations on savings / investments, mortgage switching and possibly cashback. Too early-stage to say much more about this, but we’ll keep everyone posted :slight_smile:

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In the longer-term I would love to see a category in the marketplace for charitable giving, even if not revenue-generating for Monzo.

Picking a random example, a one-click integration to become a member of Raise Your Hands (who direct your monthly donation to selected small charities), including setup of the associated direct debit, would be great.

Then we would just need a “Charity” spending category (discussed elsewhere) and automatically-calculated annual Gift Aid declarations :wink:

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In case you’re interested, there is already one provider called Sustainably who’s built an integration with Monzo, to enable users to donate their change to charity -

It would be great to see charities being given such a prominent position in the marketplace.

I have a feeling that a solution’s on the way for this :slight_smile: that’d be really useful for me too.

Would personally like to see things like this only appear if you have a related bill.

Guessing this in the CA, is there a lot and what do they look like?

@anon72173902

Like this;

I haven’t had these. In fairness that does feel spammy.

It’s spammy in the sense that it’s unsolicited, and doesn’t appear to have been targeted very well given that I’m already with Bulb and have set up regular payments with Monzo CA.

However given that it’s easily dismissed and you have the option to opt out of similar future offers, I really don’t have an issue with it.

IMG_2310

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Do you have a permanent dismiss option?

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He certainly should.

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I can Clear (Dismiss) this from my feed (which I have done) but no there is no opt-out for this sort of thing. I think it will probably be added on later when full CA will be rolled to everyone at least I hope opt-out option will be given for any sort of offers.

I’m pretty sure it’s this option from the screenshot that Bob shared..

image

presumably you see that after tapping this button -

image

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Well I am pretty sure I did not see these when I pressed dismiss

Maybe Android users don’t have opt-out yet :slight_smile: