I recently had cause to ring the number on the back of the card , Monzo gave me a recorded message with other ways to get in touch with Monzo, then some really bad pre recorded music, then a guy called Joe came on the line and said hello my name is Joe how can I help you - that took 4 minutes from ringing to answering - I think pretty good really - somebody on the forum on the same day said they rang the same number and got a recorded message and was then cut off, I dont understand why some people get cut off, yet I was answered fairly quickly .
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And there lies the issue. You are clearly over the last six months under investor pressure to deliver a profit by any means possible. You don’t have a USP any longer and are morphing into just another bank. Your direction has been diluted.
I don’t think operating responsibly as a company and trying to keep to a headcount equals investor pressure to deliver profit. It’s just the responsible thing to do.
Moving towards profitability isn’t a bad thing. It’s literally what any investor backed company needs to do to survive.
I’m interested in this part. What do you feel the USP was, and if we no longer have it, when did this happen? And how are you defining “just another bank”?
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Nobody said profitability was a bad thing. I just said it is very obvious to many people. Maybe you could highlight where I said otherwise.
How about I flip it around, and as you are an employee, YOU give me your USP. Give me your elevator pitch of things unique to Monzo? There might be some unique features but be prepared to be called out on anything which is not a USP.
Though some customers have noticed a deterioration in the service. 
I used the in-app chat in mid August, the first time I’d used it for a long time. I found the interactions pleasant. It took six minutes to connect to a human and a further ten minutes for a suggested answer (thanks, Ellie 
)
I had a couple of interactions in April that are unmemorable, …so they must’ve been ok. And back in January you resolved an issue where Microsoft charged me money that it shouldn’t have done.
Perhaps I have been lucky? Perhaps my queries are relatively simple since I’ve not yet gone full Monzo.
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My experiences are similar to yours, some good, some indifferent and one bad, doesn’t sour my opinion of support, which I’ve ways found to be friendly and helpful. I’ve never needed really urgent support, so I’m usually happy to wait as long as it takes for an issue to be resolved.
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Absolutely most quick pastes based on keywords will answer the question, but it isn’t a simple e commerce site where customers are asking for a refund etc, you have complex issues with chargebacks, interest, fraud and fees the support is next to 0 for more than standard queries that are already in the help pages.
Everything is just ‘please wait for a specialist’ and then wait 24 hours for an answer that people on the community know themselves but not paid COps!
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Indeed, it’s obvious that a private business needs to generate revenue in order to survive.
I asked about USP because you stated that we didn’t have one any longer, but you didn’t elaborate on what that was.
I actually do not believe that a USP is a requirement in order to build a sustainable successful business.
In fact, I think it’s somewhat of a red herring.
Does Netflix have a USP compared to Hulu or Amazon Prime? Does Spotify have a USP compared to Apple Music or TIDAL? Does Pepsi have a USP compared to Coca-Cola?
I’ve said it many times - focusing on this feature or that feature is not why customers love Monzo. Rather, we seek to build the most delightful and easy to use system to encourage control and mindfulness over one’s financial life. It’s why you can measure our “stickiness” - much like Instagram - in the amount of times our customers open our app per day, while other companies will need to measure per week.
So, for example, we didn’t invent budgeting. Neither are we the place for power users who want to granularly and meticulously tag and manage every single transaction. There’s software out there that can do such things very well. But, for the average user, our budgeting is a massive step up from what they’re used to - and it’s automatic, in-built to the same place where their money already lies, and requires minimum effort to have a mental overview of what you’re spending and where.
We have a company culture that is progressive and inclusive. This led to things like building the Gambling Block, which we intended as the absolute opposite of a USP - the idea of it was that we hoped others would follow suit. They have, and lives have been changed because of it. An earlier example was that we did away with both titles (our system has no concept of a title) and the requirement of cards to have “Legal Names” on them. Again, this is a culture of inclusivity because we saw the hoops that, for example, our transgender friends and colleagues had to jump through with other banks when faced with mandatory title selections and cards which had the name they were born with on but not the name they go by in their day-to-day lives. Once again, deliberately not a USP - we want others to do the same.
I enjoy (both as a customer and a staff member) that we value transparency, that we hold our hands up when things go wrong and learn from them, and that we strive to communicate in simple language that people understand, one great example being our terms and conditions.
And I like the little touches that make people smile. I remember going to Taco Bell, and when the notification popped up, it had 
next to it. Someone went out of their way to do that, and many other similar ones, to bring a little bit of joy to people’s day, and to make money, spending, and budgeting just a little bit more delightful, and less scary.
So TL:DR, if I had to pick one thing? I’d pick the culture that has and continues to allow many incredible, customer centric things to be built. The culture that isn’t afraid to tell you why and how mistakes were made and how we learned from them. The culture that cares about inclusivity, diversity, and equitable, not just equal, scenarios.
But I damn sure don’t want that to be a USP. I want it to serve as an example. And from seeing the reactions and delight every day from new customers, I know that that’s exactly what is happening, and I couldn’t be more proud.
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(Would like to be able to like this twice)
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Just want to say thank you for this response Simon, it’s really great. I know I would have been exasperated to the point of a grumpy reply to a response like the one you are replying to, and this message is far beyond a standard churned out comment! It’s clear how much you care about Monzo and how much more it is to you than a pay cheque. 
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Huh?
Correct to an extent - you just need to do things better than the competition (which you are lacking in many areas at the moment).
Yes - they all do. The Pepsi vs Coca-cola is a more discreet one though as it is only in terms of flavour.
Whilst I don’t doubt it, I would be amazed if you had access to other banks banking apps to compare to in order to make that claim.
Who has followed suit (genuine question)? Which organisations had blocks BEFORE Monzo? How do you know that the other organisations were not copied as opposed to yourselves being copied?
Titles I understand, personally I have never seen a reason for them to be on a card - but I had cards years ago without titles, you can’t take any credit for that.
I totally agree - however, it is documented that many customers have stopped bothering to submit merchant data corrections as they do not get changed at your end any longer (drive for profitability - fixing rich data does not make a profit, it is a cost base).
Which brings us back on topic. In the spirit of transparency, why don’t you publish average customer wait times for a first reply, and average time for case opening to resolution?. Excluding formal complaints of course as that can really distort things.
Imagine someone walking into your office and telling you your company is on the decline and not what it used to be. Sure that’s fine, negative feedback happens, no biggie. So now imagine asking that person why they feel that way, seems a reasonable question, use the opportunity to get some good feedback. Now imagine that person flat out refuses to give any feedback and demands you instead tell them why they are wrong and pitch your business to them.
Also worth noting this same person clearly knows all about the business already and goes to many different groups to say other negative things about your company repeatedly without offering any constructive comments.
I can say very easily I would be getting frustrated at this point and ignoring them and not giving them a long and detailed reply explaining how much I love my company. Much respect from me for anyone that can be so level headed and positive, I very much felt like I needed to respond to say thank you and how great a reply I thought it was as I’m sure doing such and just having more negative comments could be very disheartening and depressing.
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If you read a few posts up, I already laid out that there is a problem with customer service, indeed this is a thread about customer service. That is not ‘flat our refusing’ to give feedback.
I just go around saying negative things? You mean apart from where I have praised staff in negative threads? Or when I replied to a suggestion that something was a great idea? Or when I replied to someone explaining why their idea may not be able to come to fruition? Or when someone had an idea and I didn’t understand it so asked for an example of a use case? Or when someone jokingly said that a member of staff should be physically assaulted and I picked them up on it?
If you are going to follow me around, at least get your facts right and have some balance.
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I agree with some points on both (in line with the subject of this thread)
Let’s not try and get too heated though for everyone else’s sake 
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I couldn’t read every post, but I got the jist of it, and it appears Monzo is on the same road as Revolut. Customer service is an area which seems to trip up all these new banks, and would appear to be one of the most difficult areas to sort out.
I have noticed a distinct lack of Monzo input on the subject, and no one who is coming forward with a positive answer for a positive outcome.
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You mean except for like 4 posts up?
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Repeating myths and anecdotes doesn’t make them true. I submitted a merchant data correction yesterday morning and it was updated in less than 2 minutes (I know, because I was still in the app when the logo appeared). I’ve submitted others over the past month that have been updated within the day if not sooner. Sure, in some cases the corrections don’t get made or take a while, but “do not get changed at your end any longer” is plainly false.
It’s hard to take critique seriously when it is presented with such aggressive negativity and sprinkled with false ‘facts’.
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I submitted two corrections during August and one last night.
One in August updated, the other required a second submission and now it’s there.
I’ve literally just checked on the one I submitted yesterday and it has been updated in less than 24 hours.
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Yep, same here. A Chinese restaurant near where I live didn’t have a logo and the name was off. I submitted a correction and it was updated on the same morning.
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Monzo themselves have already admitted that the tool they use it not up to the job and that the backlog is long in this LARGE thread Merchant Data Corrections
I think the general consensus is that it is either done right away if the Cop knows how, but otherwise just vanishes for months.
Apparently anecdotes don’t make things true, so I will place no value in yours 