Where is the chat?

I swear I can’t find the chat in the app. It was there before! I don’t use Monzo as my primary account so I’m not in the loop with all the app updates, have they removed it??

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Search “contact” and you’ll find it.

They’ve made it harder to find for some to try and get people to look for the answer themselves first.

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Thanks! Found it! That would have been impossible to find on my own

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are all the apps showing different things because when i go to help and scroll down to the bottom of the screen the chat with us is there that take you straight to chat, it shows like that in official app and beta app🤔
i did tried them both and it’s there

Different users get a different experience in regards to a chat button. Your app version has nothing to do with it.

It’s just a method some companies use to test a new approach, and garner feedback before either deciding to roll it out to everyone, or scale it back. In my opinion, access to customer support is not something that should be tested in that way, for precisely the reason of the many threads we get on here of people not being able to find a way to get help.

Facebook users will be quite familiar with this practice when it comes to the UI. When Facebook start rolling out and testing a new UI, you and your friend could have a completely different looking Facebook experience, despite having the same make of phone and the same app version.

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Sadly, its not a test of a new approach.

Monzo have already decided to roll it out to everyone - it’s just a staged rollout.

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Are we sure though? I definitely didn’t have the chat button for a few months but now it’s back on the help page.

Seems like they’re testing having the button back for certain users?

I could have sworn someone from Monzo somewhere said that the rollout was being scaled back and phased out.

But as seems to be typical for today, I’m having no look finding it. I’m either having a bad day, or my brain is creating phantom memories, or I’m getting them mixed up with statements made on other issues.

I very much believe the roll out should be stopped and they should go back to the drawing board and find a better way. I’m happy to accept longer response times if it means everyone has easier access to human support.

Automated self help isn’t a bad thing, it just needs to be done well, and actually be done before you start putting it at the forefront of in app support. UI is a big part of that in my opinion.

I’ve (probably maybe probably maybe not) said it before, but N26’s approach is a good example to look at and draw inspiration from. Quality of the human support aside, the interface, and the frontline self help chat bot, would both replace and do a better job than Monzo’s help articles, and the frontline support who tend to act as mere concierges to divert your message to the right person, which is something an automated system can do just as well in a lot of cases.

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Yes, it’s a deliberate decision by Monzo to try and force customers to use its FAQ function by making in-app chat a lot harder to locate.

Sadly, it doesn’t look as if Monzo made sure its FAQs etc were good enough before starting to implementing this change

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I’m sure they did too. So it’s not just you.

Chat/support needs major work.

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I feel it’s kinda difficult, imagine if someone needed it in an emergency but had no idea if this community site - They’ll be clueless to what to do.

Deep down I hope they don’t completely remove the chat

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I can’t see them ever removing it, even if they wanted to, as some problems will always be too tough or variable for an automated approach, but the majority of times I contacted them a form for providing evidence for a reversal would have been a better solution for everyone. The only other times I had to contact them was the repeated cock-ups by Southern Water of my direct debit and that did require the personal toich

I think we should tread carefully when generalising here. It may be better for you, and likely for most people, but some people can really struggle with forms. It’s often an anxiety thing, people can find the concept of them daunting or scary, especially when it comes to banks, and having someone to talk you through the process for reassurance, or go through it on your behalf can be such a huge relief for some people.

Monzo would need to take great care in designing such forms to minimise variables and keep them as basic as humanly possible, to help alleviate the fears some people have, and instead inspire a notion of certainty and confidence. Ambiguity or a bare bones good enough approach like their transferwise forms would be terrible.

I did some volunteer work for citizens advice a few years ago, and we got so many people coming to us for help with bank forms because they were terrified of filling them in wrong, and would worry over losing money, or not getting their money back, as a result.

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By everyone I only meant the COps and myself really. Sorry for the lack of precision on that point

Finding a way to reduce the COps burden for those people who can cope with an automated system has benefits for those who cannot by freeing up their time a bit

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Maybe there could be a very obvious option to indicate a discomfort with the system, allowing fallback to chat. I would never envisage the automated approach being the only way to achieve something, but me taking up a COps time to fill in a web form seems the wrong balance right now

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Completely in agreement. Automation is probably preferred in a lot of places for a lot of customers too, myself included, because it means they get something done much more efficiently and then go about their day.

I actually find myself personally getting frustrated when there isn’t an automated way of getting something done that probably should be. Cancelling subscriptions comes to mind, or with a few banks, terminating a direct debit mandate. The kind of tasks that should only really take a few taps to get done, but because that option doesn’t exist, I end up having to get in touch to have the company do it for me.

There are some chat bots that already do this. They can detect certain language cues that may be a sign of frustration, such as profanity, insults, or excessive exclamation points, and connect them straight to a human.

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Quite possibly. While it’s true that a Monzo staff member said on here that it was a staggered roll out, it’s entirely possible that due to customer feedback, Monzo are reassessing whether they’ve got it right.

That or someone has accidentally flipped a flag on your account and you’re lucky to have regained it unintentionally. :man_shrugging:

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Not that I’ve actually been clicking it, but every time one of these threads pops up I take a look and I’ve had it throughout. If there was a rollout it was never a total one evidently

Spurred on by the thoughts of online forms, I went for the first time in ages to the HSBC website to see if you can amend your CC direct debit online

So now you can. Praise be I thought. But it proved horrendous from both an accessibility and mobile use viewpoint and ultimately dumped me twice at a 404 page

Still absolute dross from them then more often than not, but I thought you would appreciate the Captcha like code on the first attempt:

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For the record there’s no phased roll out going on. It’s fully rolled out now and you either see the button on the help page (depending on various criteria) or you don’t, and see it on various help articles instead.

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