Feedback on testing energy partnerships

I am afraid that things like this are what would turn me away from using you in the future… At the moment I am really happy with you services and would be using the current account soon.
Your still quite new to the banking game don’t do what other startups did before you and try to get to big too soon, it doesn’t end well…
Concentrate on your core products first and iron out any of the bugs before they bite you in the backside. Then look at other options to expand…

Keep up the good work…

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This is a key part of the core product. It always has been.

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Absolutely hate this - it should not be part of my feed - I suppose you could have a separate place to put these things if people want them.

In the interests of transparency (a core value of Monzo?) will you disclose how much money you get for each referral? Do you make it clear that you’re not offering all-of-market comparison? If so in what terms will you explain that you aren’t offering me the best deal available?

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well that answers that then

I thought it was fantastic to see on my feed (and it takes two clicks to hide it if i wanted to)

Well done on the first of many things that will help that top-left figure get bigger :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Screenshot_2017-09-26-15-16-10

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So got the offer today in my feed… Actually considering taking it :slight_smile:

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your spending priority seems ok though… booze is the most in the print screen :joy:

@spicefox Heh heh gotta maintain a healthy level of stock :+1:

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Just seen on my feed clicked through but would be same as paying now but like the idea :+1:t2:

Since @philhewinson asked…

I had an offer today (but then I volunteered to trial it so what did I expect). At the moment, the Bulb offering is £10ish per month more expensive than the deal I’m on but that’s not really the point of the trial in my mind at this stage.

For what it’s worth, my initial thoughts are:

  1. It comes across as a very generic power supply offer with a generalised statement about “average savings” and statements “in general”, rather than a personalised thing that appears to be specific to me.

  2. The Bulb sign up site is also generic (other than having a Monzo logo) requiring all of the usual data to be entered by me.

Where I’m going is that this is all fine for this point in a preview process, but longer term, if this is to work for me then it needs to be something much more individual. Otherwise, the risk is that this is nothing more than ‘Ads in the feed’ in which I have no interest.

Presented with this out of the blue, I would probably have dismissed it rapidly.

Thinking a little further, what I’d be happy with is for Monzo to run comparisons in the background but they would need to be specific to me.

What I mean by that is:

  1. I would permit the bank to share my postcode and energy usage (if I were able to provide it) to suppliers in order to get comparative quotes. (If I can’t trust the bank to do this on my behalf then I shouldn’t trust them with my money either.)

  2. I would expect the bank to tip me off only when (and only when) a suitable offer became available. Something that would actually offer me a saving. (An occasional message to remind me that this is happening wouldn’t go amiss I guess.)

  3. It would need to be ‘opt in’. I would want to give explicit permission for this level of data sharing, even though it’s mostly data that I’ve already personally shared with some of these companies already. The only additional information that I’d thus be sharing this way is the identity of my bank. I’m relatively comfortable with that.

I don’t know if that’s a mixed message or not but it’s my initial take on this. I reserve the right to change my thoughts as time goes by!

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I’m not satisfied with energy comparison from bulb. First of all my yearly electricity and gas consumption figures weren’t requested. Estimation figures were based on my postcode and type of house. In result suggested minimum monthly payment was 85, I’m paying 45 per month now. What is the point to suggest switch based on the wrong assumptions? I feel it more as advertising rather than solid energy bill saving suggestion.
Edit: After the suggestion to use ‘refine your quote’ option at the bottom of the page I was able to type my current parameters including yearly kWh. This became much more attractive offering 48 per month. It mentions that my current deal will end in less than a year and took in calculation more pricely tariff. I’m going to test it again by the end of current contract to see if I can get a better deal.

I really like the idea of collaboration with Cheap Energy Club or similar which means Monzo can give the best market deal and won’t target bulb only.

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There is a ‘refine your quote’ option at the bottom of the page which asks for all the usual things.

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I’m due to change my energy supplier very soon. The Bulb energy thing appeared in the Monzo CA feed today.

It’s good. It made me aware of Bulb. And I get £25.

Thing is, existing Bulb customers will give me a referral link that I understand is worth £50 to me. Much as I like Monzo, I’m not a charity, I’ll go with the link that offers £50. Sorry.

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Fair point about twe 50 quid link.

May I add that the Bulb quote for me was a pound cheaper than the up to date amount being paid for electricity alone. Cheaper by around 27 a month.

What Iliked was that it took less thad two minutes and all the input data was straightforward. Extremely low effort.

This should suit many who think its too difficult, too time consuming or too much bother to switch.

As stated before maybe not for the sharper peorle who pay spend significantly longer searching for the absolute cheapest deal for themselves.

I was completely happy to go ahead there and then and spend much longer here chatting about it :slight_smile:

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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!