If you had to name one Monzo feature or service that really makes the product stand out, what would it be?
Good customer service from the COps, and all other staff I have spoken to have been great too!
If there is one Monzo feature or service that really disappoints you, what would you say it is?
Their overdraft fees being charged even when someone’s account is in credit due to their decision to exclude that part of the account balance held in pots
Out of curiosity, are you older or younger than 30 years old? Male or female? Nothing to do with my decision, just want to get a sample sense of the customer demographic!
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Nice to see you a bit more active around here Graham
I’m sure the team would appreciate it if you told them what your “worst” feature was (constructive feedback is crucial, especially at such an early stage).
That’s probably also the reason for getting features out there early. You can release Sneak Peeks as much as you want, but nothing replaces actually experiencing it for yourself.
I think the best example of this is Summary (I’m sure quite a few people will disagree with me here). It was initially released in Labs until it was deemed stable enough for it to be made publicly available - which some people here disagree with due to the bugs they experienced. The problem with keeping it in Labs for a long time though is that it’s a “biased” group, in that I’m assuming that most Labs users are early adopters and/or fintech enthusiasts, which wouldn’t necessarily be representative of the average Monzo user. I think the fact that the Summary feature has received a lot more exposure as a result of this decision means that Monzo gets a lot more feedback, as a result of which the Summary tab will, in the long term, be much better than if it were to have stayed in a “controlled environment” for a longer period of time.
Screen transition times yes - my “payments” tab is super slow for some reason (I don’t even have that many contacts) and every single transition triggers a network request on the main thread which freezes the UI until it completes - almost unusable on a slow/unstable network connection.
It’s even worse when you open the account tab and try to freeze/unfreeze your card before the tab’s network request finishes - it puts the tab in an inconsistent state not in sync with the actual card’s state.
Best: Customer service - All banks/apps do roughly the same thing these days - The very few times I’ve needed to contact Monzo have been pure joy!
I shared an exchange of Minion related gifs with one of their CS people today… Magic! (They were changing my name on the account and my Monzo.me username)… I didn’t contact them purely for a GIF off…
The worst: Payee management (not being able to add a payer without sending them money is very frustrating!)
No harm in trying the banks you are looking at - a lot of us have accounts with many fintech institutions.
I see now - that looked like I was avoiding the issue My response was very much from not having used the app in many months and only now beginning to get to grips with it.
You’ll probably know I’m all for driving up quality and this forum certainly doesn’t shrink from honest feedback and rightly so, 'cos that’s what it’ll do.
I’d also say it’s very clear that the developers are tuned in to the feedback from here. (Very frustrating when you feel you’re not bring listened to.)
Exciting times…
I get that, and its always fun when that next release is due. But it can be irritating when the release arrives only to be missing something basic.
I’m only just noticing the Labs function so I can’t really comment but it looks to be a great idea.
Best: How pretty and slick the app is, which makes me happy using it, esp when I need to manually log my transactions on a budgeting app. Also +1 for not needing a password because this would get annoying quick. The staff are amazing and have real personalities (I can’t explain this but I feel like I know them rather than just what they do), and the community on the forum/ Slack are lovely but this means I spend way too much time on it
Transparency and sneak peeks also keep the hype going, and I love how involved the staff are on the forum
Worst: I don’t really like Pulse, and there are a couple of features I wish I could use to its maximum potential but just can’t.
i.e. Pots (I don’t save for things or budget), Summary (no income, no subscriptions, only one recurring payment). I don’t even need a Joint Account but the hype is real and I want one. Anyone fancy being linked on my non-existent credit report?
I think you’re right with the main thread thing, I’ve been thinking this myself. It appears the app is waiting to complete some task before actually switching tab. Rather than switching tab instantly and compute after.
Hashtags. It’s made it so much easier to manage, budget, and search for older transactions (e.g. to see how much I’m spending on a particular thing over the month or year) than even Notes did (which was my previous favourite feature
The fact we can’t split up ATM transactions into separate transactions (so parts of an ATM transaction could be placed in a different category and assigned a different hashtag) kills me because it means my budgeting will eventually not be completely accurate. It also means I’m not comfortable going anywhere that doesn’t take card, which unfortunately is still a fair few places and a fair few places my friends enjoy going to (especially those pubs that don’t take card for less than a fiver, or single tickets on some bus services).
If Monzo would allow us to specify where our ATM transactions go (by category and hashtag), we wouldn’t have to wonder where all of that money has gone. Writing a note about where each part of the transaction has gone doesn’t really help because it then doesn’t form part of the search for the #beer hashtag. So the total for the #beer hashtag is always going to be less than I’ve actually spent, and if I put a #beer hashtag on the whole £10 ATM transaction for a £3.50 beer (and I did that regularly), the total would be way too big.
It’s just a terrible, terrible shortcoming of the app, and there is a usable solution; I’m not sure of the technical difficulties of implementing the usable solution, but it’s certainly usable.
Overdrafts, it’s still the only bank prior and since to have refused to provide an overdraft (Starling Bank offered me an overdraft instantly after Monzo declined )
My response was very much from not having used the app in many months and only now beginning to get to grips with it.
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, and I’m a cis male.
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