One of the biggest challenges we’re facing as we grow is making sure we can consistently deliver amazing customer service, every time. We’re experimenting with automated messages in Monzo Chat:
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This is great and should hopefully sort out those easier to solve questions! I must admit, that it does feel that Co-ops hasn’t scaled anywhere near as well as the rest of the business.
However this should reduce the need to even talk to someone ‘real’! Will try it out later.
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Personally I think that removing the ‘automated message’ under the chat bubble is a good idea, the first time I saw it it really put me off as great now another customer service bot.
It’s still obvious that it’s a bot, but I feel it’s less off putting.
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Are the 10% random test users selected at random, or is this a Monzo Labs switch?
Please dont.
Have a help section for FAQ’s and a chat for chat…
So many companies doing this now and it rarely helps. If I want to chat to someone, it’s probably cause I’ve read the FAQ’s first and couldn’t get the specific answer I needed…
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This.
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Whilst I do agree as I tend to leave contacting customer support as a last resort. I imagine enough companies have done testing to identify that the resolution rate via these bots must make them worthwhile.
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I would prefer to talk to a real person… says Pinocchio
I think this is a case where people who post on our forum aren’t necessarily representative of the average Monzo customer. Or, at least, the average customer who gets in touch via chat.
Unfortunately the reality of the situation is that we do get a distinct number of support chats that have relatively simple answers that can be found in FAQs and the help section. And whilst we still want to help those people with a personal service, it does mean that it adds to the wait times for people who have issues that can’t be solved by reading the FAQ.
It’s a tricky balance, but we think this will help 
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I can probably guess that 99% of people don’t even look in there and just jump straight into chat.
You can use this forum as a gauge of that too. Hardly anyone searches or even reads a few comments up from their own before asking the same questions 
Dammit @simonb beat me to it! 
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But how how do you count the people who do search, find an answer, and so don’t ask a question?
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I don’t understand your point 
Why do you need to count them?
Possibly.
I do work in software development (Product Manager by Trade) and used to work within the analytics team working to improve customer self serve bots for a contact centre (Should’ve admitted to that earlier 
, so yeah not your “average customer” I guess).
We found, though, that even if you automate “common questions” and set people’s expectations "You’re through to Botty McBotface) they would, even in simple enquiries, basically rail road through the bot’s automated questions, abandon it, and call in instead. Even though the bot had all the answers…
Through improving the visibility of the FAQ Page, and automated prompts asking them to check the FAQ’s first we kept the contact rate lower, and worked on things we could automate (such as can you re-send my booking details) in the background.
I do agree that machine learning is brilliant, and I actually look forward to what Monzo does with it.
PS - apologies if my post came across as harsh or “soapboxey” - not the intention 
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Whilst I do agree as I tend to leave contacting customer support as a last resort. I imagine enough companies have done testing to identify that the resolution rate via these bots must make them worthwhile.
It’s probably lower than you think…case example being we looked at automating the ID&V/Security questions through the automated capture via bot of the customers booking nr. Through a trial we found that 80pc of customers didn’t know this, preventing them from continuing the chat, and impacting call volumes…
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You said ‘Hardly anyone searches.’ My point (a bit pedantic, and I didn’t make it clear) is that you don’t know how many people search and don’t ask, you only know the ones who do ask.
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So the future of banking is… choosing options in a chat rather than choosing a number on a keypad for the option you require? 
Ahhh ok get ya 
You’re right, I dont but I’m sure that Monzo have data on terms that are searched, most returned articles, viewed articles and so on 
You can work out behavioural patterns from this, especially when you cross reference it from other sources too.
I just love data and I could get lost in all this 
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Nice article and some good work - every win, however small, for Monzo Chat will have an outsize impact
It mentions the help articles being improved recently. Will this be an ongoing activity? Can the machine learning and/or COps highlight where new articles or improvements to existing articles would help?
I had the bot on a chat I had a month ago. Didn’t find it annoying and since I needed to speak to someone it still clearly gave me the option. Also it helps automatically filter the urgent requests
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Monzo does have in-app analytics, so if a customer doesn’t open a chat after reading a help article, they should be able to see that.
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