Support chat disappeared from app

I can see this from both angles. If the answer can be found in the help articles, it takes the pressure off customer support and eases the waiting times, but I can also understand that people might want to be able to get in touch quickly during the current situation.

It’s easily fixed:

  • Have FAQ’s

  • “Does this answer your question?”

  • Ok, lets chat!

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Are you sure that’s why? Are you measuring clicks into the help tab too?

I only ask because I was trying to get to the chat (after no relevant results in the search) several days ago and couldn’t find it at all. I even found the ‘get in touch’ link mentioned above, but when it didn’t do anything when I clicked it I assumed chat support had been removed and it was a dead link.

So, I may not have been measured as an inbound support request, but I was trying to be!

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Yeah i hope this doesnt become a misused stat like the one used for saying cheque depositing wasnt wanted.

People werent using it as much so we thought it worked.

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“Inbound [support requests are] actually significantly down due to people not being out and about using their cards.”

Speaking personally, of course, but card payments and direct debits that have mucked up at the merchant end have driven almost all of my half dozen chats over the last year or two

Over the last month and a bit I have steadily had week on week fewer transactions - 40, 29, 39, then 28, 13, 10

As a result I can believe that is driving a real change in the number of chats (and COps working)

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It is a very significant number. As you have probably seen in the press we have now put a lot of staff on furlough, and that includes a large amount of COps. The work simply is not there due to a dramatically reduced number in inbound which is directly linked to a huge decline in card spending which also means loss of revenue.

A huge drop in card spending practically translates in not just the revenue loss but also the amount of inbound support as a result of that.

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What was your problem

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This was extremely beneficial to me when I had need to contact COps last night and got through to someone before having a chance to answer the first automated question :smiley:

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Assuming Monzo pulls through this okay there’ll be some really interesting data at the end of it. I imagine the bulk of the queries now from those who are using Monzo as their main current account: so questions about direct debits, overdrafts and (in some cases) loans. It’ll be fascinating to see if that prompts a change to their business model after: is servicing millions of folk using Monzo as a cash card and not making them any money worth it? :thinking:

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It’s getting the balance between someone who really needs Monzo’s help, due to say financial difficulties, being able to get help quickly vs someone who’s query could perhaps wait. If you can guide people in to sorting their own issues out quicker than speaking to someone that’s gotta be a win win

So I just found this thread after having a problem I wanted to check in with the COps on.

And honestly, for problems that I have searched for, and not found an adequate answer, not being able to get in touch via chat is 1000% times more frustrating - and honestly, reminds me of the friction of trying to get through to a Legacy Bank.

And now, if you press ‘this doesn’t solve my problem’, on a help article, you get “Thanks for the feedback”. So what do I do now? Just aimlessly keep searching for terms until I give up in frustration
?!

Fair enough, don’t make “Chat with us” the very first box, but at least have a mechanism to offer the chat option when you don’t find what you need, or make the self help tools work better than they currently do, before disabling chat.

For what it’s worth, because I didn’t know the secret search term, I ended up using “I don’t recognise this transaction” to get to the chat box.

As an example of unhelpful articles - this morning I was trying to find my overdraft settings - this is the article when you search ‘manage overdraft’

Thanks, super helpful! Why doesn’t this article either link me to the page in app to do that (I think this used to happen?) or show me the specific workflow to get there?

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on iOS (on my phone) the overdraft questions gave a big button to take you to right screen. As does questions about limits (searched for atm fee, got to a page about limits, including atm limits and fee free limit)

I just had a quick look (also iOS) - the only Overdraft article that does link for me, is “Overdraft Fees”. Which I wouldn’t have ended up clicking on in my original search.

Not sure if that’s being tested or not, but either way I think the help articles need more consistency in how the user flow works, to really make it self service.

I completely agree.

I contacted Monzo last night due to unauthorised transactions on my PayPal account (I just wanted to cover all bases and see if there was anything that could be done to stop the money going anywhere if the transactions did get processed by PayPal). Now, if these unauthorised transactions were on my Monzo account and I hadn’t known to search for the article and click a button in there, this stressful situation would have been made 10x worse. I would have had no idea where to turn for help to ensure my account was secured and no further unauthorised transactions could occur.

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On iOS if you click on the transaction (I don’t have any pending, maybe it differs) there’s a something wrong text, clicking on that tells you about freezing card etc and has a get in touch link which takes you straight to chat. If that’s the case for pending transactions and you never saw this it’s something to study ux wise

The problem I have here though is I’m calmly looking at the app to look for the flow, if I was stressed and panicked by lots of fraudulent transactions I maybe less inclined or able to read through this and click on links (3 colours of link/button, some midway through a screen of text etc)

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They weren’t showing in Monzo yet, they had just come through on PayPal, I was just proactively checking in with Monzo to see if anything could be done in case PayPal did go ahead and put the Direct Debit requests through in a day or two (thankfully PayPal resolved the issue overnight, so this won’t be a problem).

Though I had actually forgotten that there was a path to support through transactions, so may not have even considered that route in the moment if these had been on Monzo. “Help” tends to be the first instinct when something has gone wrong :smiley:

I wonder what the split is for the button removal and if there are any other factors taken into consideration.

For example: The button is still there for me and I hardly ever use chat, last time I did was easily over 6 months ago :thinking:

Same, rarely use it. I just looked through, before this week, I used it last in October - and that was me complaining about my Plus account, then 2 previous contacts in the 6 months prior to that.

The chat with us button is still there for me too, right at the bottom, not sure where it was before

Mines gone now, it was there the other day.

A/B testing or not I actually think it’s disgraceful to hide it the way they have. I know how to access the chat because I spend so much time lurking on here but if i didn’t I’d be a pretty irritated customer right now.

It just doesn’t make sense to me, in a time when all the legacy banks are adding a chat service to their apps, the bank that pioneered it are hiding theirs, it’s ludicrous. It’s not like there is another reasonable way to contact them. I’ve never phoned nor have I emailed(I sparingly use the chat) but from stuff i’ve seen online, response times on those options are ridiculous and it’s not like you can go in branch in an emergency.

I love Monzo but disagree with this in it’s entirety, as a bank you should be easy for your customers to contact, the chat button should always be there. Tech savyy people will find it, however, the majority of people are terrible with technology or don’t have time to jump through your holes. If you’re getting too many wasted chats where people want to do something they could’ve done themselves in app then I’d say the usability isn’t is great as you think it is.

In my opinion, people could easily leave you and switch away if you make it harder for them to ask a question

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