After dwelling on the thread for a bit, I think what I am missing is actually engagement, and not transparency.
As Cookywook says, as the business scales the ability to be as transparent as they once were changes - and personally I like how they go about sharing that through blogs, events, etc.
What I do miss though is genuine engagement. How many times have you seen a blog post get dropped with no follow up, or “what do you guys think?” and no conversation.
I don’t mind the way in which we do get to see plans unfold, but I do miss the way Monzo staff used to engage in this forum. There’s a core crew we all know and love who do share the love in here, but I’d love to see this increase.
But also - I get why some things are less active on here than they perhaps used to be.
I had a look at the user list for this forum… There are about 40,000 members. That represents about 1% of Monzo’s customer base.
If you look at active users - and lets say people who have been here more than 7 separate days in the last month - that’s at about 800.
And there are 125 of us who have logged in every single day in the last month…
I suppose my point of all that, we’re part of a minority of Monzo users - and I suspect that the forum’s ‘1%’ doesn’t unfortunatley represent what the entire customer base want, or even represent return on investment if you were to hire a number of community engagement roles.
And yeah always been aware that ‘we’ are the smallest % of the smallest % but that engagement was touted by Monzo, not us, so if it’s changing, that’s ok, just acknowledge it?
I think this is key and, in my opinion, where a lot of growing companies tend to go wrong - they scale and forget about their roots.
I agree with the sentiments expressed regarding it being difficult to get excited about Monzo at present. In fact, it’s been this way for almost a year. In the meantime the competition have been upping their game (with greater product portfolios too).
As an investor, Monzo USA and Monzo Business… potentially great.
As a consumer, Zzz Zzz.
When it comes to press scrutiny I think it’s a poor excuse not to be transparent. I view these sort of threads as being more harmful to Monzo’s reputation than a PR position that honestly promotes Monzo as being transparent and engaging with it’s customers (the latter being something I’d describe as a misleading claim right now).
I think perhaps our expectations of transparency have been slightly skewed by Monzo’s past performance, and that we don’t always realise they’re still a lot more transparent than most.
This was particularly brought to mind by looking at another company’s forum and seeing them (quite aggressively) close any topics mentioning issues, bug reports, or close to a complaint. In some respect it feels like a determined effort to silence any speech perceived as negative - and also denies to original poster the chance to update when everything has been sorted. At least Monzo only close such topics in limited circumstances, when UK laws mean that they can’t say anything and the community can’t add anything. Otherwise they do leave things open so we - which can include staff - can discuss.
And speaking of staff, I think @BritishLibrary hit the nail on the head with regards to what actually is the issue:
I remember when we used to get a lot of staff posting frequently - even Tom would have his say. Understandably, as the business scales, people move on or they have less time available to spend on the community forum. It is a shame, though - and part of me wonders if, given the traditional light hand moderation and strong views of many regulars, there is an element of intimidation stopping some staff from being involved.
Also the fact that the Times and Telegraph use posts on the forum to write some of their articles probably doesn’t help It’s one thing to share some information with interested and understanding (to some degree or other) forum users; quite another thing to have it misrepresented in the national news.
tl;dr, hard to sum this up - as Monzo grows and moves on, so too do we?
At a high level I’d be interested to know how many of those 1500 employees actively work on new features and of those how many are focussed on UK consumer features?
I get the impression that however big this group is they are only focussed on the paid plans with no one looking at polishing off all the little things.
Some of the labs have been labs for a long time and I can’t believe there is no one available to complete pot sorting on iOS. Whatever happened to 20% time?
I assume everyone else is working on business features, USA features and internal Monzo features.
The best we had it was when @bruno communicated the new navigation changes. Lots of transparency, a beta period with regular updates, feedback taken on board etc.
That seems an age ago now though. Whatever happened to this team overhauling budgeting? It’s been radio silence ever since then
Also, the new navigation was supposed to unlock all sorts of possibilities for other teams to take advantage of but I don’t recall anything doing so
All this said, I know Monzo have amazing and talented people who love what they do. I trust that whatever is coming will be worth the wait and secrecy🤞
I’m sure this won’t be popular but actually I think one thing Monzo could do with shedding is the ludicrous entitlement that goes with this community sometimes. This isn’t a school project or young enterprise initiative-its hopefully a business aspiring to profit.
I haven’t been a member here for years but I’m a member long enough to be party to the (again I’ll use the word) ludicrous demands of a community which is in some cases literally demanding every possible permutation of a given feature.
In my opinion Monzo should engage, listen to constructive feedback and seek out opinion here even somewhat mysteriously. What it should not do is broadcast the plans for the business or app prematurely in what is an incredibly competitive and ever changing space.
Monzo Plus for example was a disaster, I was a recipient of the communication and product failure and had my say on it but when thinking back now the dirty laundry was all aired here in public. That’s wrong. Transparency is one thing. Exposing the business to all sorts of negativity is another. The Autumn /Winter seemed like a bloody nose to me. At some point you have to trust things will be OK with those who are at the wheel. I hope they are ready to spring (like err… spring?) and show the world new and next level innovations exclusive to Monzo that have been kept under wraps because they’re unique. Then everyone can get engaged again.
Just wondering what you need from Monzo? All companies have plans of growth! Some take longer than others, this is still a newish bank(compared to high street failures) I think Monzo/Starling etc are doing great. Money goes in, bills come out…Why do we complicate life and worry about…Small stuff.
I agree with some of the comments on here, though transparency isn’t the word I’d use, more like engagement like @BritishLibrary said before.
If Monzo don’t want to go into much detail, that’s absolutely fine! It’s easy to slip under the radar when you’re a small business but when you get bigger you’re competitors are always on the lookout for what you’re up to… I do think, though, that a little more engagement is needed.
Monzo doesn’t need to go into detail, maybe just let us know that something new is on the way (like when Marvel tell us an “untitled film” is on the way around a particular timeframe in the future). It gives us all something to be excited about without giving too much away.
Definitely more user testing, and this can be done by special invite… Maybe even a NDA if Monzo want to keep their cards close to their chests.
Just spitballing here on what I think would work for both the business, its consumers and the community.
I’d agree with this if it weren’t for the fact that Monzo were the ones trumpeting their transparency. You can’t have one-way transparency I’m afraid, not how it works. THAT would be ludicrous to assume IMO.
All I can say in response to that is, I don’t worry about this, in the grand scheme of my life Monzo is a tiny tiny portion and only becomes important when it doesn’t work (like any good product).
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Anarchist
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Im not sure I’d put it quite so strongly as that, but I totally get the sentiment behind it.
Most of the regular posters here have some sort of investment in Monzo. It might be financial for some, for others it might be emotional, or an investment in time or effort.
It’s not unreasonable for people who spend some spare time helping Monzo out with customer queries, or evaluating new ideas, to expect some quid pro quo.
There are many ways that could manifest itself. For me, just having the forum and community here is reward enough for my input. But I can see for others, their expectations are a bit higher. They might want more engagement from the company, which is something that Monzo have engendered themselves in the past. But in the past, Monzo had a few thousand customers, it is now a maturing bank.
Expectations may have to be modified somewhat as this process develops. Basically, the relationship between Monzo and it’s community will change as Monzo grows. The trick is to make sure that the relationship has the same value as it transforms.
That’s fair but things also change and transition. I would say the trumpet could be heard very easily then too because there was less people in the room. Now they’re playing a trumpet at Glastonbury to a crowd of ravers, rockers and classical enthusiasts with the rest of the world looking in for highlights on BBC2
Nor mine, but I wasn’t the one that laid out the transparency, it was Monzo. It’s clearly changing, as is the engagement model, so I look forward to their view on what transparency means to them now.
I’m pretty much with you. I too am an investor. Its for both financial AND engagement /interest reasons.And I also think there are many combinations of that relationship and affinity in between but this is exactly my point - engagement at that level becomes futile, noisy and even a little bit toxic sometimes.
I’m sure monzo use focus groups of these profiles, I’ve seen some evidence of that
I think, and i know there’s a an app beta. That’s probably the way to proceed.
I’m excited as anyone to get news. in fact
the reason I checked back was to find out if Plus was ready again
It’s one thing to share some information with interested and understanding (to some degree or other) forum users; quite another thing to have it misrepresented in the national news.
with you. I too am an investor. Its for both financial AND engagement /interest reasons.And I also think there are many combinations of that relationship and affinity in between but this is exactly my point - engagement at that level becomes futile, noisy and even a little bit toxic sometimes.