I donāt think it is anything to be concerned about. Theyāve already said that card use has drastically reduced and therefore the need for support has too.
Iāve seen people report instant response times which is good too.
The article says that the decision to close the Las Vegas office was already being considered before pandemic started so it seems to suggest bigger concerns in Monzo about cash burn and controlling costs.
I wonder what this means for their US plans though - as Americans are likely to want CS staff in the same country - even if it doesnāt effect the current beta
OK. People using their account has drastically reduced
The article states that none of the LA team currently work on US Monzo
A bit of inbound but mostly card usage. Here ya go
This decision seems to have been taken on cost grounds given it was considered before the pandemic and lockdown which led to reduced usage
Yes, but I would lay money on the fact the the original purpose of the team was to provide support to US customers and they were being trained/used to support UK customers in the meantime.
Otherwise, there would have been no need to open an office in the US when they did
I wouldnāt read into it more that what is there. Dont worry
It mainly is card use that drives need to contact them though. Payment did not go through. Payment went through twice. Payment cleared, but did not register at website. Lost card. That sort of thing etc etc
All of those are way down in both my personal experience and, from word from Simon, across the customer base as well
Iāve only ever had to contact Monzo about direct debits and the like because Southern Water have a flair for cocking things up their end
@gt94sss2 comment still stands though⦠At the point Monzo US goes general release in the those customers are going to want to contact CS on or much nearer their own timezone. Given the vastly different banking rules we canāt rely on UK CS being able to respond to those calls.
Iām curious about something from the article, and building on another couple comments:
It should also be noted that this doesnāt appear to impact Monzoās U.S. launch. Vegas support staff were servicing U.K. customers only, with U.S. customer support provided by a small team in London closer to the development and iteration of the Monzo USA beta.
This seems a bit⦠counterintuitive, to have US support come from the UK. I wonder what goes into the decision that the support team should be more remote from the customers than from the app development team.
Of course - I imagine thatās at least 2 years away though - maybe longer given the current situation.
Plenty of time to re-open when itās cost effective.
Las Vegas team were always there to avoid UK team having to work unsociable hours - their evening time covered most of our night
UK team covering US for now as it is a small operation and a lot of things are new and moving fast
In that case, then, I wonder whoās on the other end of the phone number on my US card. Iāve never actually been able to get through to someone during the day, but if theyāre based in the UK and working off those hours it would make sense. I always thought that number was ringing through to an office in the US because it was ālocalā to the US.
This is the key thing here. By now they have such a large number of support staff that Iām sure they can provide 24/7 UK based support from people who WANT to work nights - and if they can, that is a marketing point too. Did Corona accelerate it? Probably. Is that a bad thing? Probably not (apart from for those who lost jobs).
āTechCrunch understandsā
I thought it was always a bit daft when BBC News or BBC Sport says āthe BBC understandsā, but that is another level
Even given the current economic slowdown, I donāt think Monzo can afford to delay their US plans. I suspect their cash burn rate, competition or VC backers.
Creating a team in one country to support another is very expensive, especially when done in a country like the US.
There is a good reason most firms who do this use somewhere in Asia for this.
Given the number of queries, it would have been easier just to expand coverage in the UK.
Cost drove their choice for Vegas. Apparently quite a reasonable standard of living there for the money
I have had my absolute fill personally of horridly poor VOIP phone connections out to Asia with HSBC, the highlight being the call where the person answering did not know what a cheque was, so the US is alright by me
The same cultural ties partly drove them to try expansion there first
And a shout out to @simonb (and colleagues) who must be rather devastated by this news having played such a large part in the getting operations there off the ground. This is far from just a numbers game and likely one of the hard choices he mentioned recently