We’re continuing our journey on the inner workings of Monzo with another AMA. This week we have the incredibly talented @SJ
SJ has been with Monzo for 3 years 8 months and 7 days!
I asked SJ for a little bio of what her role includes which she was very kind to provide:
Product Partners are a bit like operations managers - we sit between the Product teams and the COps teams to ensure that COps have the right training, guidance and support. The area I look after is known as Account Management internally. I have a team of ~100 COps who sit in my area, and they deal with things like bank statement requests, card deliveries and changing account details.
SJ will finish answering questions by Friday 22nd Oct. Let’s pick her brains
What would you say the coolest part of your job is
I get to really change things for the better, for our COps and our customers. A huge part of my role is identifying areas of improvement and then working to improve them, so it’s really varied but ultimately I’m always helping someone and I love that.
How have you found working from home?
I love it. I moved from my team leader role to this role in February 2020 about two weeks before the pandemic really took hold, so before I was a full time office worker but remote working suits me a lot better.
I have ADHD so I find the office a bit of a distracting place especially when there are lots of dogs visiting, heh. Working from home gives me a nice calm space to really focus in, it’s great.
What do you think Monzo will look like in 5 years’ time?
I’d love for us to be the people championing meaningful change across the industry. Helping people who are underbanked, for example, and educating people on how to feel in control of their money. Preventing scams, and giving people access to what they need, when they need it without unnecessary friction.
One of the things we aim for at Monzo is ‘effortless interaction’, i.e. the action you’re taking shouldn’t feel complicated or hard and I’d love for us to influence other institutions to design with those kinds of principles in mind, it’s amazing how much nicer your product feels to use when you design with your customers in mind.
Ha, I absolutely see what you’ve done here but I’m going to answer honestly and say that I always really enjoy the moving walkways in airports (which are designed to transport the public so I’m absolutely having it).
It makes me feel a bit like a god to stride along at a speed faster than walking pace, what can I say!
What’s been a common question that COps didn’t know the answer to and how did you train/manage them to make this info common knowledge?
This is a really interesting question - one of the things we look after in Account Management is name changes and it’s really surprisingly how many different types of document there are to prove that a name change has happened!
Deed Polls especially trip people up as there are a couple of different types and depending on the circumstances they need to be signed by either one or two witnesses. It can be confusing to know if what the customer has provided is enough to be able to approve the name change.
Once we spotted it was causing a lot of escalations internally we put together better guidance on what Deed Polls can look like and what each different type requires to be ‘legit’. Now COps can go and check that if they’re ever unsure We also added it to our onboarding training for Account Management so COps are exposed to the information early on.
It’s a simple solution but often those are the best, right?!
My favourite interaction when I was a new COp (so back in 2018!) lasted about a month - we were trying to deliver a replacement card to Brazil for a customer and various things kept happening to block it: our card supplier were unhappy with the address format and rejected the order, the customer then moved to a different location and we had to start again and the delivery time to Brazil was slow.
Then we finally managed to get a card to them only for customs to lose it, so we had to start a third time by which point I was joking with the customer that if I had to get on a plane to Brazil to deliver the card myself I would
Throughout this time we’d built up a real rapport, they were so chill about it and would send photos of the beach and how the weather was doing, it was fun to see a slice of the other side of the world in real time!
Eventually we got it there only for it to be stopped at customs with unexpected fees Of course. Due to all the hassle we agreed to pay the fees on the customers behalf to make up for the time delay and they finally, finally got to activate their new card. Success!
What is a typical day like on the job?
It really does vary but I spend a lot of time handling tricky escalations from COps, actioning feeback from our QA team on where the processes I look after could be improved, and assisting our amazing product teams when they launch new things to make sure that COps have all the information they need to handle any queries that come their way
If you could only eat one dish for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Sushi, hands down. We often play ‘if you were a dog…’ with new friends (i.e. if you were a dog and could only have one meal for breakfast, one meal for lunch and one meal for dinner what would it be) so I’ve thought about this a lot
Would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck?
100 duck size horses - because they’d be less terrifying than a duck sized horse but I feel like you could also just easily…not bother fighting them? Like, I’m fairly certain I could outrun 100 duck sized horses if I really needed to but if a horse sized duck turned up I’d be in trouble
Would you rather fight an orangutan once, or fight a chicken every time you leave the house?
Why do all the animals want to fight me in this universe?!
I really dislike all monkeys/chimps etc so I’d rather fight a chicken evert time I left the house. I work from home, it’s not like I’d have to fight it every day and we’d probably end up building a rapport eventually. I could bribe it with treats or offer it a cute hat, I reckon I could get it on side
Nope! I think I picked up a chat once from our former CEO, Tom Blomfield once - does that count?
There are definitely a few ‘celebs’ that are known to have Monzo accounts and it’s always fun when you spot them talking about it out in the wild, but it’s really strongly instilled into us (as it absolutely should be) that looking up customer data for anything other than helping that customer is a breach of our code of conduct, so we’d never look anyone up even if we did know that they had an account with us
especially when there are lots of dogs visiting, heh. Working from home gives me a nice calm space to really focus in, it’s great.
(which are designed to transport the public so I’m absolutely having it).
Sushi, hands down. We often play ‘if you were a dog…’ with new friends (i.e. if you were a dog and could only have one meal for breakfast, one meal for lunch and one meal for dinner what would it be) so I’ve thought about this a lot 
