A few weeks ago, the British neobank Monzo suffered a rather resounding failure with its “Wrapped” campaign. So much so that even on this side of the Canal Les Echos they were talking about it.
Much like music streaming sites do, Monzo sent its 8 million customers a retrospective, but this time it focused on their spending, by category, over the past year. However, many customers did not like it at all. And they made it known on social media, where Monzo invited its customers to share their personal retrospective.
Finextra published some of his tweets in an article. “Monzo has called me a fat bastard and a gambling addict,” protests one customer (do we really need to translate?) who obviously spends a little more on food and online games. Many others did not take kindly to being singled out as big spenders on brands such as Greggs, Deliveroo or KFC or being reminded of the impact of inflation on their purchasing power. Others simply don’t like their bank interfering with their private spending.
Such a mishap may seem anecdotal. However, we find it interesting to pause for a moment on this.
A humorous tone that is not transmitted.
For several years, banks, through their mobile applications, have informed their clients of their monthly or annual expenses by category. But this is done in a very neutral way, and the visualization generally barely goes beyond, at best, a layout in the form of large pie charts. Is this why these analyzes – as all studies show – are of little interest to their clients?
In any case, Monzo wanted to go further and introduce a more direct and humorous tone in this return. But Monzo particularly seemed to have the clientele to do this. Monzo, an innovative neobank, has since its inception focused on building a different relationship with its customers. She was the first to be convinced that in the era of chatbots and to stand out, banks must adopt a different tone and evolve their language to speak with their customers. Unfortunately, in the present case and as demonstrated by the aforementioned reactions, what was intended as a wink of complicity was often received almost as an insult.
Certainly, the relationship with money is complex and the way to spend it is a particularly delicate topic. Monzo probably didn’t take this into account enough. In any case, the neobank probably too naively believed that its approach could please all its clients as a whole, when we know that financial maturity differs considerably from person to person.
But there’s more to it because Monzo was also trying to develop a more personalized relationship with its customers. A goal that has represented the Holy Grail of retail banking for years and today more than ever, as we hope that generative AI will allow us to truly achieve it.
Perhaps Monzo has only suffered in advance a mishap that other establishments will experience, before we realize how absurd the idea that treatments are automated and massive can allow us to personalize the relationship with customers.
If it is about introducing more intelligence into this relationship, it is by providing data, tools and support that enable customers who want to be more active in managing their finances and not by passively distributing feedback to them that they will be more likely to consider inappropriate. since they didn’t ask for anything.
Source: BFM TV
