Which way does the see-saw tip…
Bad PR vs Free Support
(And you can easily argue that the latter is part of the former)
But I was under the impression that ‘free support’ merely consisted of other forum users advising those seeking help, to phone the number on the back of their debit card, or try the in app chat? And those that couldn’t be ‘helped’ on the forum, were just told, ‘We’re just forum users here, you need to speak to Monzo’. Perhaps I haven’t quite appreciated the ‘help’ that those seeking it got?
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The forum users answered most generic questions like how do I do roundups or unlock a pot, etc
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And my favourite: When will I get paid this month 
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That’s what I meant.
For basic things, if people explained them, then there were/are a fair few people who could do basic trouble shooting. When will I get paid, refunds, pots, “left to spend” etc. Obviously people can’t help with specific account queries.
Most people don’t actually need to speak to Monzo, they need to read.
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Perhaps a pivot towards something similar to Apple’s community is something they’re considering here?
Allows them to keep it around for that free frontline support for how to find chat,
or how pots work, but removes everything else. It would be a shame, but aside from dedicating internal resources to the running and management of it, What other options do they have to eradicate the bad stuff without losing the good stuff?
The moderation can still make or break that approach though. The current moderators are too often more concerned with policing the folks who are trying to help, rather than actually contribute something helpful themselves. And that just won’t work. I believe Apple deploys a system whereby you earn privileges based on how frequently helpful your contributions actually are, which nurtures self moderation, so there’s no need for that heavy handed oversight. The only folks with moderation capabilities are Apple employees. Higher privilege users simply have the capability to flag things for those moderators.
The USA angle is probably the best justification for it ATM.
It’s a shame they don’t have many employees like Dan who are passionate enough to dedicate their free time to engaging as often as he does. Those are the sort of folk they need, I think.
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The really sad one for me is “How do I contact support?” as Monzo have made it much harder to find the in-app chat than it should be.
Or perhaps they just got tired of people pointing out the largely random/discriminatory manner in the ways customers are allowed to access in-app chat including many who cannot even leave a message overnight…
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The cynic in me suspects that anyone with enough brain cells to be able to successfully get online, or open up a bank account through an app, also has the ability to work other things out for themselves. Unfortunately though as was alluded in another post in another thread somewhere, there are too many people these days who want constant handholding or who are quite simply, too lazy to seek out the answer for themselves. Never ceases to amaze me how many questions are asked that can be simply answered by ‘Googling’, but it’s just too much trouble for some.
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I think you’ve summed it up very well.
Especially as Discourse has the feature that if you’re typing a post title that is similar to a previous one, it will point you to them.
Clearly people just ignore that and ask about paid early anyway.
It’s like those useless users who post to Facebook saying does anyone have the number for… What time does this place open… Does anyone know where this place is?
Try ask Google, you’ve just managed to ask Facebook, so the logical step is actually search for it and stop been lazy 🤦
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I agree, but let’s remember that is what they have broadly been told to do - the problem starts at the top of the pyramid.
THIS!
and THIS!
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I think we’re stepping beyond the scope of community moderation and more into app on boarding flows, which would probably benefit from its own thread, but I think you’ve actually answered your own cynicism here I think.
Monzo make the onboarding flow painstakingly simple, and they hold your hand all of the way through it. That makes it very easy to do for most people.
Once you’re inside though. The hand holding stops and you get thrown into the deep end of an app that has a lot of complicated features and poor discovery of self help, or methods to actually get in touch. The community has greater discoverability than contact options and that’s a real problem. Self help articles aren’t great if users don’t know what to search for. And the search is pitiful too. If you’re not deadly specific with your search term, you won’t find what you’re looking for.
Monzo make this stuff far too complicated, I think. It can feel insurmountable at times when compared to the fact there is a big button for the community where you can just ask for help in your own words and actually get a helpful answer from a human. Whilst the answers may exist in help pages, when I’ve checked, if they used the same words to search the help articles that they used in the title of their post, they won’t have found it.
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Shh this is the secret of an entire industry you’re carelessly posting for everybody to see.
Luckily, they’ll never find it.
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Absolutely right. So much of the support required is low-level and not account specific.
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Ugh, the Apple Community. The so-called experts do my head in with their
“Hi, and welcome to the Apple Community. I understand you’re having trouble with XYZ. You’ve certainly come to the right place and it’ll be my pleasure to help you!”
They then post a completely irrelevant link to one of Apple’s official support documents.
Come to think of it, Microsoft MVPs are pretty much the same.
I think I’ll go and lie down now…
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I’m quite intrigued, I wonder why Monzo’s SMM hasn’t pushed out any form of update on the future of the forum 
You’d think they’d at least owe the dedicated forum Monzonites a decent explanation by now and tell them one way or the other about what is happening. Only a couple more hours and that’ll be four days down. I’m not even a forum member and I’m frustrated 
Time for me to get a life.
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I’ve now replaced the Monzo Community bookmark with this forum. That says a lot
Also, hi Alan and Richard! 
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Pah! Once the Monzo forum gets back up online, you’ll all stop lurking and bugger off back 
Which would be a shame by the way 
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I still think it’s an if, not a when! Even if it does reopen, I’ll try to keep an eye on here as people have been nice
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According to one of the Ombudsman decisions I am reading
Banks don’t have to give their customers detailed explanations
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