So far I have been having a thoroughly enjoyable experience with Monzo, and am so excited for the full license stage. But whilst I am waiting, I need to stick to my Big4 bank, to work with my salary payments, Direct Debits, etc.
And the customer service is APPALLING. Anywhere from the chat option not working for days on end, constant drops in communication (if a call drops, you need to start over), being on hold for half an hour at a time, trying to choose from a million menu options, etc.
My question is- how are you planning to maintain the excellent, personalisde customer service you have now as you grow bigger? I understand you aren’t expecting RBS/Lloyds numbers straight away, but still- what’s the plan here? Would be great to hear more.
I must say the current customer service is incredible, it’s just like you’re texting back and forth and ther isn’t any of that silly “formal speak”
I’m am curious also to see how the standards will hold up when when Monzo becomes the biggest bank in the county.
So glad to hear that you enjoy the current customer support experience My name is Emma and I manage the customer support team. Customer support is always going to be a central focus to Monzo. A great app can only get you so far, giving our customers and community the best service is one way we feel that we can differentiate from competitors and set a precedent in the industry. Customer support is also a great way for us to learn about what our customers want, any bugs in the app and any challenging user experiences.
Bots are a subject that often come up when speaking about scaling a customer support team. There are a number of pros and cons that come with using this type of technology. One thing that I really look for in new hires is their ability to pick up the Monzo tone of voice and empathise with customer. I think tone of voice is something that really differentiates our customer support and something that would be challenging for a bot to emulate. For that reason, we don’t plan on replacing our team with bots as we grow. We have done some research into a hybrid model, but it isn’t something we are looking at implementing in the near future.
Since I started in at Monzo in March our customer base has had amazing growth, but our customer support queries have not grown at any where near the same rate. I think this is testament to @ole and @tristan on the product team taking on board all the feedback we give them on a weekly basis and really designing the product roadmap to reflect our customer’s needs and wishes. What is most critical as we grow to to maintain this strong feedback loop between the two teams as it will impact the volume of queries. That being said, we will be growing specialist areas in the support team, especially with the new demands of the current account. We can’t ignore the fact that there is always the chance of a bug or outage that will create spikes in demand. One way we have managed with these issues in the past is that everyone on the Monzo team is trained on our customer support tools so that we can ask for help when things get busy.
I would love to hear any feedback or recommendations on how you would like to see the service grow!
I would assume that a lot of queries come in when you have a service “outage” , I find it very useful to have the SMS reports of Monzo Status when you are having problems with the service, it lets me know what is happening if my card is declined , top up doesnt add up etc , it would also be useful , if possible to get some idea of how long these outages will last so we can plan our spending ( I know , - how long is a piece of string ? )
Is there an option to join these notifications in app on sign up now, explaining why the information might be useful , after depositing your initial top up , or is it only if you know about it on the Monzo web page ? if not such a facility in app might take away some of your spikes in demand for customer queries - I am sure you are as usual ahead of the curve on this anyway
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I am not taking anything away from the customer service department and the great job they are doing, but surely Monzo’s transparent and open approach works in their benefit.
A lot of phone calls (or in-app chats) will be prevented by the simple fact that the app is honest with us. If we know of the issues/problems because the app tells us about them, we will just be patient and not be phoning and annoying them. I never understood why companies are not proactive in their customer service approach and always rely on us phoning them for every minor thing!
When I phone my satellite TV provider with a technical query, I am usually put through to someone in a call-centre with zero technical knowledge and a checklist of things to do. It is after turning box on and off and trying all stupid things that I am eventually put through to someone with technical knowledge or an engineer scheduled to visit. This online community/forum will in essence also take some of the pressure of the customer service department. If a lot of the information and answers are here (something you don’t get with highstreet mainstream banks/companies), why would I annoy anyone at Monzo with what I know is a stupid question that has already been answered by the same call-centre emoployees numerous times?
With this modern, innovative and progressive approach, I trust Monzo to get it right. So far they have been doing an outstanding customer support job!!
Despite the team doing such a great job on making the app easy to use, I think it’s inevitable that any app will get users asking a small amount of the relatively small number support requests along the lines of “How do I…”.
It would be proactive to write up a series of FAQs articles, expanding the page already in place and have a link to the page from the app.
Perhaps also include a search form in the app somewhere, that’s pre-filled and showing articles relevant to the part of the app you’re viewing at the time. I know Monzo use intercom and I’m not sure if they have such a feature. Just as an example of what I mean, Help Scout do offer this feature.
With the suggestion feature, you can put articles front and center based on the page people are viewing.
This is something I’ve been hinting at in the form of self-serve help. Take some of those questions that maybe aren’t important enough or don’t fit in the app interface but are simple and common enough to not require action or a personalised response from support.
My name is Emma and I manage the customer support team. 
Customer support is always going to be a central focus to Monzo. A great app can only get you so far, giving our customers and community the best service is one way we feel that we can differentiate from competitors and set a precedent in the industry. Customer support is also a great way for us to learn about what our customers want, any bugs in the app and any challenging user experiences.
There are a number of pros and cons that come with using this type of technology. One thing that I really look for in new hires is their ability to pick up the Monzo tone of voice and empathise with customer. I think tone of voice is something that really differentiates our customer support and something that would be challenging for a bot to emulate. For that reason, we don’t plan on replacing our team with bots as we grow. We have done some research into a hybrid model, but it isn’t something we are looking at implementing in the near future.
I think this is testament to 
That being said, we will be growing specialist areas in the support team, especially with the new demands of the current account. We can’t ignore the fact that there is always the chance of a bug or outage that will create spikes in demand. One way we have managed with these issues in the past is that everyone on the Monzo team is trained on our customer support tools so that we can ask for help when things get busy.
