Customer Service Fail

The time that live chat would likely be perfect and they blow it because either they are completely insensitive and are trying to be funny or because they need to significantly improve the training for the 1st line

:hear_no_evil:

Not saying you’d never get this from a legacy bank but I think this highlights very well the attitude of fintech approach to customer service

5 Likes

that’s really quite shocking! And Monzo are so proud of their tone of voice, too :roll_eyes:

3 Likes

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Usernames

Might have to start a new thread called “thread derailing fail”. By the time you lot are done no one will have any idea what I posted. I should flag you all🤦‍♂️

3 Likes

What’s the correct equivalent verb to use for a deaf customer? “We’re good readers?” Did the Twitter OP say?

It’s an interesting conundrum really.

Just because someone is deaf doesn’t mean they cannot speak and doesn’t mean that they cannot have a phone call with someone. I don’t think there really is suitable verb… "we’re good with deaf people :woman_shrugging: " sounds worse.

I think this comes back to sensitivity and intent. Monzo are clearly doing their best to say “we’d love to know what we can do to help you” but completely missed the mark because of the emoji 1st policy when it comes to communicating.

3 Likes

Absolutely, they should have simply said something like: “We are always looking to help our customers in the ways which most suit them, including making adjustments to allow for their unique circumstances. If you would like to tell us more about your situation, we will see what we can do to help.”

12 Likes

Oh dear. Seems like a bit of an own goal. Maybe Monzo should understand that sometimes professional language is just more appropriate - they’re a bank, not your mate - because it avoids cock ups like this. Something along the lines of what @Seb came up with would’ve done perfectly. At least they held back on the emojis for once. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised by:

We’re sorry to hear that you’re deaf :hear_with_hearing_aid:. How can we help :man_shrugging:?

The chummy language is actually one of the reasons I favour Starling over Monzo.

7 Likes

I agree with you, and it’s heartening to hear that from someone of a similar age to me as well.

I was starting to think :thinking: that I was the only one annoyed :unamused: by random emojis in bank communications!

When I first used Monzo 5 years ago, I liked their product and thought it was cool that they were trying to modernise banking. It’s more recently that they seem to have lost sight of that as a mission and tried to become almost a social purpose company, which is weird to me and certainly not something I want from a bank.

Since then, I’ve just found it increasingly grating as they seem to have pursued this more, especially against a backdrop of adding fees to their product which “target” (for what of a better word) the poor and marginalised. The blog posts about “diversity debt” (which I’m sure is a concept they thought up themselves, had never heard of it before), the pompous and arrogant prattling about “tone of voice”, as if they are better than other banks who dare to use professional language. The final straw, for me, was the debate about frauded. I was involved in that thread on the community, and I was careful to be respectful to avoid flagging, but I frankly I just think it was wrong.

They could learn a think or two from the big banks, if you ask me, in this field.

3 Likes

Careful @Seb, you’re going to make me close my account with them by reminding me of all that crap!

It frustrates me just as much as it does you, but then again I think this ‘activist (read: self-righteous) capitalism’ is a huge part of marketing in 2021; loads of brands across a range of sectors do it, and if the major UK banks didn’t have such dodgy records (case in point Barclays and the apartheid and HSBC’s current involvement in suppression of democracy in HK), they’d probably be at it too.

I’m far too sceptical to accept that any of it is done for reasons other than PR boosting. A funny example of absolute hypocrisy was when Ben & Jerry’s decided to become the voice of migrants crossing the Channel with Tweets that were put out by their social media team, while their owners Unilever had just been done for tax dodging in the UK and Ben & Jerry’s themselves came under fire during the 2010s for dangerous working conditions and poor pay for the migrant workers in their US supply chain. Absolutely no shame… and of course people still lapped it up. That’s why I like companies to just get on with what they’re supposed to do (ideally in an ethical fashion, of course), and leave the politics to the consumer - no meaningless preaching from corporations that actually don’t give a damn.

2 Likes

I couldn’t have put it better!

It feels so disingenuous that it puts me off the company, even if I agree with it, and sometimes I don’t agree with it so it puts me off the company even more. International corporations shouldn’t be in the business of divisive politics, it’s just not their area.

I know what you mean about being reminded of their low points, though; I had forgotten about the diversity debt saga until someone mentioned it the the other day. Then as soon as I remembered I was slightly p***** off all over again.

1 Like

Very true - the Starling update notes are insufferable. At least they don’t use that kind of language in important account communications and live chat. If they absolutely need to vent it somewhere, I suppose the app update notes that most people won’t read is at least better than in the app itself!

While we’re on the topic of Monzo’s overuse of emojis and overly friendly language, I’m surprised the account closure notice that someone posted on here a few days ago is so blunt. I thought it’d be more like…

We’re sorry, we’ve had to close your account :frowning_face: Unfortunately we won’t tell you why :shushing_face: :face_with_hand_over_mouth: We have the right to do this as part of our terms and conditions :man_judge: Sorry about that :yum: :wave: :fu:

2 Likes

If a certain someone on the Monzo Community was put in charge of tone of voice/comms, their messages would pretty much look like that! :laughing: (maybe even more emoji?)

1 Like

This gave me a nice afternoon laugh, I fear that @anon47616136 is right on the money as well.

Let’s hope that further emojification is not forthcoming!

I’m steadfast in my believe that it is, as this topic title says, a customer service fail. Often used, it seems, to act almost as a distraction to cover up the fact that the service isn’t very good.

2 Likes

Speaking of emoji, it’s poll time!

Is the plural of emoji:

  • Emoji
  • Emojis
  • Other (please add below)

0 voters

a useful poll

:rofl:

1 Like

Just to balance it out again :joy:

1 Like

Oh no, I know exactly :bulb: who :tipping_hand_man: you’re :point_right: talking :speech_balloon: about :eyes::shushing_face:

I must say it does give me a good laugh sometimes :joy: Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s part of a focus group Monzo uses to work on their communication style haha, I’ve never seen anyone use emoji (using the correct plural now!) so fanatically! I actually admire the consistent dedication to finding at least 3 emoji to reiterate every single word typed.

2 Likes

Plural: emoji

But singular: emojo

1 Like

Emojae? Emojus?

1 Like