Support chat disappeared from app

[Ordog]

Thanks for the constructive post Most of us understand and appreciate all that is being done

[TheAxelr8r (Alex)]

I’d just like to make it clear now that I don’t have a problem with features being lost or changes being made. I’m not upset about that. I’ve been with monzo a while and I’m gonna need a lot more than ATM fees to make me leave.

but this is different

Ignore the pandemic, I’m sure we’d all love too anyways. You can’t just experiment with direct communication like it’s any normal feature because it’s not. And if there’s no one internal checking what people are messing with then that’s a much larger concern to me.

@simonb

users not being able to get in touch when they need to is absolutely not the desired outcome of this, and it’s possible the balance isn’t right yet.

But it’s a very real repercussion of the changes that have been made, whether it’s a test or not. It’s more than a button, it’s more than a feature, it’s directly harmful to the people who need you most in their time of need. Monzo can’t just shrug and call it collateral damage. This should have been fully considered before any changes or tests or experiments were made and from the outside it’s not clear that there has been. It’s not transparent either - which is one of the main reasons I like monzo so much.

@simonb

I’m hoping that we can get a staff member more directly involved with this to perhaps shed a little more light so please watch this space.

I really hope we can get some more info from someone directly involved, not to question or blame or anything like that - but to understand why this happened and hopefully avoid the negative consequences as much as possible. I used the term ‘unethical’ earlier and I realise that has some pretty strong connotations, but I meant it quite literally - there are ethical repercussions to ‘experiments’ on something as integral as getting in contact with your bank and so I’d quite like to know to what extent this was considered before experiments were approved.

Thanks for replying @simonb, it’s great to see the forums being put to good use

[TheAxelr8r (Alex)]

On a related note of concern, if a user enters a question that there’s no answer for in the app there’s nothing to let them contact monzo then

Surely you’d want an option underneath everything?
“Can’t find what you’re looking for? Get in touch with us here🔗”

Otherwise you’re relying on there being someone slightly relevant and people knowing to click that, or that they know to actually search help for something like “get on contact” so that they can message you.

[BritishLibrary]

Thanks @simonb for the reply - I appreciate your points made, and the openness as always.

In a similar vein to the comment above - I am all for change, and features evolving, and the features of last year looking different to the features of next. Generally leads to progress and the general direction being improvements in the round.

But I do agree with the sentiment of what Alex commented - testing that has the potential to have a drastic impact for the userbase (in maybe edge cases, sure) seems like a tricky path to go down.

Monzo would never, I imagine, turn off or hide the ability to make card transactions, or Faster Payments, or direct debits for certain users under the scope of A/B testing - and I would see the Help function as similar.

[Anarchist (Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)]

@simonb

Furloughing a large amount of staff is a temporary measure, and it’s very possible that the economic situation will continue to be poor at a point where furlough is no longer an option, and decisions will need to be made on the basis of revenue to ensure the company can continue.

I was under the impression that furloughing staff was more or less free for the company (albeit there’s a delay in the company receiving the funds).

Am I wrong? I fully include the possibility that I am.

[Addzy]

Yes, what looks like will be quite a timely delay in receiving the funds and not free in cases where the employer chooses to top up their wages, which if i remember rightly Monzo are doing?

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

@simonb

@simonb

Furloughing a large amount of staff is a temporary measure, and it’s very possible that the economic situation will continue to be poor at a point where furlough is no longer an option, and decisions will need to be made on the basis of revenue to ensure the company can continue.

I was under the impression that furloughing staff was more or less free for the company (albeit there’s a delay in the company receiving the funds).

Pretty sure you got the wrong end of the stick there

I expect what Simon was alluding to is the fact that the government can only keep covering the cost of furloughing staff for so long and the economy may weaken further. In which case the government might withdraw this support and that would put extra pressure on Monzo.

[gt94sss2]

@Addzy

Surely nobody at Monzo is silly enough to use that as a measure of success.

Monzo have done it before.

I distinctly remember them canning Cheque Imaging on the basis of extremely dodgy stats claiming there was no demand for it on the basis that relatively few used their existing customer unfriendly process.

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

And they were right.

Starling have launched it now though

[Seig (Scott)]

Thank you for replying. Hopefully some of the feedback in this thread is useful, even if put across emotionally at times.

I do think you raise an interesting point, that I wonder the impact of. The active people in this forum after a loud minority of the customer base - with potentially very different needs (I would assume that those who would engage with a bank on a forum have a different need set to those who wouldn’t)
That said - does this forum then have less purpose? If we here are not the target audience - which is correct considering the active members Vs total customers perspective - then are we heading towards a more hostile forum environment due to changes less liked?

I have to admit that I spend a lot less time reading here, as I don’t think it’s as useful as it was in the early days. So maybe it’s a natural change anyway.

[lpoolrob (Rob)]

@simonb

This particular experiment, as I mentioned, was started before the pandemic hit. But the reality of the pandemic means it was a necessary measure and will almost certainly continue (short of the data showing that it makes no difference, which isn’t likely). We need to invest in more self-service tools to ensure that users have the ability to solve problems themselves and not need to contact chat.

The data will be the amount of accounts which become dormant. Or will you bring out a silly stat like you did with cheque imaging?

That said, I think anyone who is reasonable would agree that self service tools need to be used as much as possible, both to save you costs and to empower customers. The fact that you are now experimenting by removing links for people to contact you shows that you as a company have failed to find a way to help customers. You have nobody but yourself to blame for that. Don’t punish customers for your failing.

The only thing it does is scream of cost saving - as opposed to any effort whatsoever to help customers. If you think that statement is incorrect, please explain why you think there is any benefit to a customer.

@simonb

I’m hoping that we can get a staff member more directly involved with this to perhaps shed a little more light so please watch this space.

Please don’t put a sacrificial lamb (ie developer) here. Put a decision maker here, I think that would benefit everyone more to see both sides?

[anon95680666]

can we please dial down the aggression towards Simon,

What we are seemingly missing out of the posts Ive read is how many people are actually needing to contact in app chat , we are all complaining that the facility is missing for some , but actually before the thread was created how many actually realised it was missing and how many of us are trying to contact in app but having to go through another couple of steps to find “chat with us” ?

I for one would be interested in all the posters that have vehemently complained about this missing facility, how many have been affected by the change … have you not been abe to contact in app chat at all , should you have needed to ?

seems we are all getting a bit techy with this lockdown

[lpoolrob (Rob)]

@anon95680666

can we please dial down the aggression towards Simon,

No aggression towards him (from me at least). ‘You’ etc refers to Monzo. He is the de facto spokesperson. I have huge respect for him

[misterm]

There is a danger if we all get too tetchy to often Monzo will go the way if Starling and decide that the forum isn’t as useful as it was. We are very privileged that our messages are read and taken onboard and often answered quite candidly, it’s not a given

I think Monzo may have made a mistake in this case(and it might take a loss in custom for them to realise this), but I generally support the direction they’re going, and hope that they will strike the right balance soon

[anon95680666]

yes I linked to you but not necessarily replied to you , sorry , Simon comes on to try and explain Monzo thought process as far as he knows and everybody seems to weigh into his best explanation

[Nsteer (Nathan Steer)]

@phildawson

They would tap Help? then go uh, um, huh, uh, I don’t see how?

This would have been me when I needed help on Monday. The only reason I knew how to get help is because I had seen people on here figure out how to do so.

[anon95680666]

but they would press help … and then go through typing the question and then did this answer your query …no …then chat with us …doesnt it ? … we have seen the chat with us , we have seen the removed chat with us … how could anybody ever change what I am used to ??? grrrrrrrr

[Nsteer (Nathan Steer)]

@anon95680666

did this answer your query …no …then chat with us …doesnt it ?

Nope. Most of the articles don’t have an option to go through to chat if it didn’t solve your problem. You have to search for a specific article.

[anon95680666]

so there is no way to get to “chat with us” ?

[misterm]

Compared to a legacy bank it’s not that bad. For a legacy bank you need to find the number(maybe only lost and stolen on card), ring navigate the menu, try to remember the security details you setup ages ago then get told you need to go to a branch

Still room to improve there plenty of options open to them, which may work better and keep staff costs low