@simonb @cwtch as its related can we a Monzo response to whats going on with chat, what steps are being done to improve things with scaling, what you see happening in future. Plans to improve how queries are dealt with best etc
We get these threads all the time. Like flogging a dead horse.
We know Monzo staff lurk these threads… 
This recent one would be excellent to answer…
https://community.monzo.com/t/how-do-we-think-monzo-can-improve-the-chat-experience/87035
Oh wow. You’re the equivalent to Tom, but the forum version (to me anyways 
)
What are we doing wrong?
I believe we are heading in the right direction, and I don’t think we are doing a lot wrong, it’s more of a case of ‘How do we do this better’.
That’s my short answer 
It’s a direct question for @cwtch as per the thread title - So no, sorry.
I don’t remember what I said to Tom and anything that was relevant in late 2016 or early 2017 wouldn’t be particularly relevant now anyway - we were running a prepaid card with 60k customers and about 50 staff at that time.
New unofficial Monzo uniform confirmed.
Au contraire.
I see the entire forum as being the daily, consistent answer to that question, as well as many other questions (including the direct opposite - What are we doing right?)
That’s such a rubbish politician style answer 
I hope you do better than that in your performance review if you get asked similar 
Are we going to get a genuine long answer? 
There was an elephant in the room, its now a herd, and we aren’t being heard. 
Are we going to get a genuine long answer?
There was an elephant in the room, its now a herd, and we aren’t being heard.
The genuine long answer is the same principe as my short answer. Of course, I am not the right person to be discussing such issues, but there’s plenty of topics about such issues on the forums, and we are aware of them.
From a COp’s perspective, I can categorically say that a lot is being done behind the scenes, to address these (I answered a question previously relating to how escalating to a specialist works, and what we are doing to make that process more efficient)
So it’s not a case of nothing is being done, it’s more a case of, a lot is being done, but we want to get it right. (again, I’m just a COp here, so I don’t have all the information)
Fair enough. I’m not suggesting nothing is being done, I’m sure things have been put in place and there is a master plan.
Do you think Monzo should be making these “things” known and public with a blog post? We could direct the new “I haven’t had a reply in x days” that we get tomorrow to it, so they know that Monzo have noted them and avoid a lot of repeated discussion.
Based on the post above “How do [you] think Monzo can improve the chat experience?” As in what bottlenecks do you encounter often, are you being asked to deal with too much and would prefer focused incoming queries or do you like the randomness it currently brings, are customers too demanding - does there need to be better ways to communicate hold ups so the customer is being kept informed. etc
Two Monzo employees in an online conversation with customers / others, I also interpreted your post as a question to all.
Perhaps I have got the wrong end of the stick.
It seems your happy to share your opinion with Monzo and engage with them but at the same time telling them the community forum is a distraction.
Regardless of what you might think about the community, Monzo obviously see value in it and so do most of it members
I started writing a post a month ago which was based around what my day at Monzo involved, it includes some of the changes we’ve made recently. I wasn’t sure it would be all that relevant or interesting, but if you think it might be - I’m happy to finish it up.
For example, one of the things we’ve done recently is changed the way the escalation system works.
When I first started, for example, if you escalated a chat from front-line to our general queries team (basically if you don’t know the answer to a question, or if it’s a more complicated situation which needs more digging into then you’d escalate it to GQ) it would leave your personal queue, and sit in that queue for a GQ specialist to pick it up.
They would then investigate, put notes on the chat and then it would be sent back to the front line. Sometimes this was picked up by the original COp, but often it wasn’t.
Now we answer chats directly on GQ - reducing the number of COps who have ‘touches’ on the chat.
This works most of the time, but we’re still developing the system. One of the side effects is that it takes a bit longer to respond to the customer - but it makes for a more consistent experience for the customer.
Again, and I’m speaking about my own personal experience here, I think the system is better. However we’re still making tweaks to this and constantly trying to improve the experience for our customers. One of the things we’ve changed recently is that we now make sure customers are told that if they’re being transferred to this queue then we won’t be able to see messages they send until another COp picks it up. So we’re improving the system and helping manage expectations.
I’ve genuinely never worked anywhere where everybody is so focused on improving things for our customers. We constantly iterate and feedback is always welcomed by the teams who develop our internal tools.
I think the new system sounds better too
Your interpretation is yours, simonb has clearly stated his.
And I’m pretty sure both simonb and cwtch are very aware of all of the other threads on this forum that, repeatedly and in detail, repeat what Monzo are doing wrong at the moment.
Your first question is a tough one. I think the team are currently more focused on developing strategies to make customer interactions with us a lot smoother. In my own opinion, I think creating a blog post about it isn’t needed here, as the majority of users here are aware of the issue, and so are we and I think there wouldn’t be a need to direct customers on the chat to the blog post, as we’d already be speaking to them at this point
Your second question, there is a lot being done with how our internal process works (as Dan mentioned), and I don’t think it’s a case of customers being demanding, and we try now to make it clearer when we escalate to specialists, and the journey customers will go through
Incoming chats aren’t really random. A lot of the queries we get, all relate to specific things that we often come across (like unrecognised payments of refunds), and we are looking at doing a lot of automation to help COps with this.
One good working example now is that if a customer gets in touch to say that they don’t recognise a transaction, they’ll be able to tap the transaction in chat, and Monzo Helper will freeze their card and try to offer suggestions about the payment. When the customer comes through to a COp, they’ll then see the transaction in question straight away (this reducing the need to ask more questions etc.)
So we are doing a lot of work with the chat feature, and I think it’ll be a lot better
Sounds like a good stance to make, so more automation and Bots before speaking with real people? If I got that right 
If it helps us faster then surely that’s a good idea
Not necessarily bots. It’s more automation that will actually help customers and us.
We found that we can reduce a lot of incoming chats, and solve problems without speaking to COps with a lot of issues that customers contact us about, so it’s about dealing with the simple issues that doesn’t need a COp to do.
Yeah makes sense, completely agree especially for the simple queries if it doesn’t require a COp then automation maybe the way forward 
But to me this is a massive issue. I got that message nearly 6 days when being escalated to a specialist. Still no response from a specialist so my messages are being ignored. This in itself is a disgrace. If i now have another issue I CANNOT raise it within chat, which is just silly, i don’t understand how anybody at Monzo can think that this situation is ok.
I don’t mind waiting times, but being able to only have one issue is a big big problem.
Sorry for the rant but i fail to see how this is not a problem and no Monzo employee has yet responded to it in any thread i’ve seen.