Weâll keep all the discussion here for now, ultimately this will be a hot topic of discussion for a few days and then there wonât be much that hasnât already been said, and itâll return to general discussion about their app/features etc.
I suspect thereâll be a great deal more activity on this thread over the weekend, so we can re-evaluate if necessary over time, but right now having multiple threads doesnât feel like the right move, IMHO.
Whatâs interesting is that disillusioned Starling customers wonât abandon their unhappiness now the forum has closed, theyâll just express it in other places like here where Starling have a limited ability to respond or censor and suppress.
I was actually having a discussion with someone in the Office on Monday regarding Starling and itâs forum as well as Starling as a whole, as you do. He pointed out, that when Anne was at RBS they looked at ways of interacting with customers and Natwest launched a consumer forum just after she left, then they closed them down after something like 30k customers joined it, because of the negativity. Which leads me onto the fact, Starling and RBS are working together, RBS donât want an open forum because of the problems it caused in the past, then all of a sudden a transparent open bank like Starling shuts the forum down, just weeks after announcing a tie up with RBS. Obviously could just be coincidence, but rarely a coincidence is a coincidence in a the banking world.
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phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
4306
So one of the threads before the delete was about how we donât want to see adverts, this was in the transaction feed.
I said this needs to be shutdown before we start seeing adverts after you login to the app.
My wifeâs Starling has an advert on the pulse screen for an overdraft which appeared tonight.
Iâve always avoided this thread, but just heard the news and couldnât resist dropping byâŚ
Iâm stunned reading the statement, and slightly dazed and confused. Iâm canât quite grasp how closing a forum will aid the pursuit of transparency and reaching out to customers. Perhaps encouraging and engaging more customers to join the forum may have been a better move than cutting everyone off.
The arguments put forward are the same challenges that Monzo face in terms of customer sensitive queries, and while there have been some âhair raisingâ moments and exchanges, in general these have been handled well.
Forums can be resource intensive though, so I understand if there are other operational challenges (like service, growing the customer base and of course the âhelpâ being offered to RBS) then forums do rather take the focus away from the core activities. So I can understand.
But still, I think itâs short-sighted and something they will come to regret in future. And it does sound a bit like an excuse - learning already from RBS
Some people on the forum were some of the biggest fans of the product.
Now they have been driven to a rivalâs bank forum and have been actively welcomed here. This is a nice refreshing response. Its also interesting that the Starling community is now in the Monzo community.
We like fintech, sure there there can be some friendly discussions on what product or service is better but we share a common ground that we are fans of fintech, technology and products that challenge the market and this forum allows open discussions. Together we can learn from each other and grow together.
Thank you Monzo forum for allowing open and active discussions on all things fintech and for making this a welcoming place even for people who have a preference for another product. But ultimately both Monzo and Starling are challenging the market. Even if the products differ they are pushing the bigger banks to rethink how they do banking which is good for consumers.