Professional, Friendly and Honest for me.
I think Monzo are already professional, even with the emojis. I still like the use of emojis and have never got bored of them nor failed to understand them. However I get the point that was said about exchanging words for emojis. Screen Readers should be able to read them, but some emojis have a different description to what they mean in the context of the message. So replacing words with emojis is a no-no. But using them along side is a big yes to me!
The emoji accessibility issues being raised in this thread have really opened my eyes! Checking my privilege. As a COp I do my best to use them sparingly, and to not replace words with emojis - I use them more like you do salt and pepper. Sparingly, and at the very end in order to season. 
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Simple, Friendly and Honest.
And again, another vote for less emojis.
I definitely agree that emojis should be used less. It reminds me of Cleo who use GIFs every other message… Urgh
Simple. Friendly. Professional.
How do staff pronounce this? Is it see-op or is it kop? Personally I find the capitalisation ‘COps’ awkward to read, but it makes more sense to me if it’s pronounced see-ops.
Great question! It’s just plain old cop 
(it stands for Customer OPerations)
Friendly. Human. Quick.
Responsive, Friendly, Clear 
Thanks, everyone! These have been great.
Harry’s got all he needs now for his work on our Tone of Voice. And he’ll be back to share his findings once he’s found them.
But please do keep your feedback coming! 
I don’t like the use of emoji in formal writing (eg notifications, the main website, the app). I think they look unprofessional and add nothing.
I don’t want an overly-familiar, gimmicky bank.
I want clear, simple, accurate, and professional. Having said that, your writing mostly hits the sweet spot, it’s just the emoji that I can’t bring myself to love.
Maybe there should be an option for emojis in notifications. Twitterrific for example offers to disable them in settings.
🤷:black_heart:
️:pound:
Conversational, clear, relaxed.
I’ve not really noticed the use of emojis as being high, so either I over use emojis myself, or I’m just too accustomed to it!
A few thoughts:
The use of emoji doesn’t worry me. Indeed, I think they help with the tone, feel and differentiation of Monzo. Don’t change your approach because it doesn’t “feel” like a bank. Remember that user needs are different from user wants.
Be aware of tone and words as you scale. Be situationally aware - what works for a small community might not work for 10m international users. I have no answers, but keep asking yourselves how you maintain the current tone and approach when things get bigger.
Finally, scale isn’t the only change to think about. I’ve read* (in passing) about some complaints which appeared to be dismissed with standard (legalese?) scripts. This would jar against the tone you generally set and make me worry that your style is veneer rather than in your DNA.
(Now, banking is heavily regulated and you may have constraints, but challenge, push the boundaries, disrupt… But I also find myself wondering how to approach a difficult conversation where you can’t please the customer, and how that works in terms of content design…)
My words? Human. Friendly. Approachable.
.* I can’t immediately find the source, so apologies if this isn’t correct.
Forced, herding, searching.
Let me explain - I am not really talking about the writing style more the direction that I perceive the forum to be heading. In recent weeks the traffic about Monzo in any light has decreased. The glowing praise has been replaced by complaints about stagnation and change. If it wasn’t for the negativity about say shutting down prepaid the post count would be well down and the forum a quieter place.
It seems to me that the Monzo staff are now 'nipping any negativity in the bud’and trying to create discussion about anything. All forums peak, have major contributors and settle down to lurkers and dwindling comment. Is that more natural than trying to herd conversation? I don’t know but the forum has changed since the CA migration and seems more stilted.
I think that this may be because Monzo haven’t brought any major innovations to the table since the CA upgrade. There have been some tweaks around DDs etc, and other minor iterations, but issues which new users seem to want (like Apple Pay, SEPA, etc.) always seem to be just over the hill.
Let’s hope, eh!?
There are lots of third party emoji fonts. I have mixed feelings.
I hate how many people copy Apple emoji into Android. I want to see the actual emoji font on my system the way emoji is meant to work. It is a typeface not a set of pictures.
That said, I think it also ridiculous to prevent its use in iPhone apps, fonts are meant to be used for things like this. Heck even copying them to use in Android UIs is okay if used truly as a font should be used (like any text in an icon, not copying them as a complete set to replace any real emoji the user dare type - like WhatsApp and Discourse do).