Clearer settings menu / private matters

R

Hi all,

Fist I'd like to say congrats on update #8! I love the new together and dark mode, and I appreciate the constantly improving focus on community.

With the update and mainly the change of together, the 'private matters' (aka support chat) has moved to the settings menu. I noticed that many have trouble finding it and therefore I'd like to make a suggestion consisting of 2 parts:

Move the private matters / support chat back to the together tab. The together tab's icon (a chat icon) implies that the support chat can be found in that tab and it's the most logical place for it. If you want users to intuitively find private matters, I suggest to make a large 'private matters' button at the top of the together tab.
Improve the find-ability (is that even a word?) of the settings menu. Just having a profile image at the right top of some tabs (the button isn't even available in the together tab, which I suggest it should be) does not indicate there is an underlying settings menu and it does need work intuitive. I would suggest to write 'settings' under your profile image, or even replace it with a small 'cog' icon.

I understand that most experienced users will not have an issues finding these functions, but for many new users they may be hard to find.

MarcoS

René I think they want to encourage you to use together more. The amount of chats can probably be reduced a lot if people would “google before they ask”. If the button is too visible the users are more likely to be lazy and just ask it on the chat instead of looking it up.

But I also think there is a real downside to hiding the chat. Real personal business, like when my card is stolen and I’m not that good with using apps. I won’t find my way around quick enough to calmly block my card from the cards tab and I really want to speak to someone about the stolen card but since I couldn’t find how to block a card, I probably can’t find the chat either.

R

Marco

I do appreciate your first point, but I believe that the focus should be: being able to find support as quick as possible, when you need it.

Having access to your money is critical in daily life and access to support should not be a consideration of 'users being lazy'. Not for a bank at least.

MarcoS

René You are absolutely right, but I get their thoughts. bunq doesn’t have unlimited funding to acquire a thousand chat supporters. I can’t come up with a different/better solution yet though.

JohnDo

Hi Rene 👋,
Thanks for your feedback! Always good to read when bunqrs appreciate all the effort and cool new stuff.

I agree with you that Private Matter should be at a more prominent position in the app since it is a very important function. However, I dont think Private Matter should be to close to Together. In the past people often made the mistake by using Together instead of Private Matters. So separating the 2 functions is a good thing in my opinion. So where to put Private Matters? 🤔 I think it should be placed on the profile page but more on the upper site of that page and maybe even in a slightly different color.
I'm also curious about what other bunqrs think of this! So let the ideas and hight fives flow 😃
Have a nice day Rene!

R

Personally I think that if you make a clearly defined header stating ‘private matters!’ and then a clearly distinguishable public section, it will be hard to mix these up.

With the private matters being away from together, I think the opposite will happen John...
I think it will be MORE likely that people are going to post private stuff in together, as they can’t find the private section.

I will make a little mock up soon on how I think it could look

R

René It's a bit too hot to spend ages in photoshop, but here's a little mock-up how I think it should look:

JohnDo

René Hi Rene, you might got a point there. A very clear distinction would be key here!
We are now experimenting by not moderating new topic upfront because we trust our beloved bunqrs of course. So, that is an extra reason to make the difference between public and private chat absolutely clear.

Bastiaan

René Nice mock-up! That's indeed a nice spot for it!

JohnDo

René Perfectly. Big High Five!

JanBrodda

René While we are thinking about interface changes, I also like the other suggestion which was mentioned earlier. The user avatar should be shown in the right corner of the Together page, like it is on the other app pages. That will just give the app a more consistent appearance and make it more intuitive to open settings. The plus-button could just be moved a bit to the left to make room for the avatar.

PH

René Absolut Perfect. Please bunq change it like this!

R

Jan Brodda Definitely agree! The + button could even be moved to the page with the overview of the topics (the page you see when you click ‘see more topics’).

TimoNowitzki

Hey 👋,
Maybe a combination of @Jan Brodda and Renes mock-up would be great, I would really like that. This way it’s easy to find and you can access the settings like the global limits from all tabs 🙌

Keep being awesome,
Timo

Noah

Good point(s) there René! I totally agree.

Casper-Yellow-Wolf

As was mentioned before; support staff costs money. However, trying to cut costs by hiding a feature is clearly not a very productive approach. My suggestion is to put the private chat button back in the social area (Together tab) and triage private matters chats with a bot🤖.
It shouldn't be this endless back and forth before you speak with a person, but often asked questions are easier answered by a bot than searched for in a forum. For example: the recent problem with logging in on together.bunq.com. There must have been a lot of people asking for that in private matters. A bot could anticipate this and suggest questions once a user starts typing. This would keep users close to human support, but make it more efficient to use and cost-wise.

JohnDo

Hi Casper 👋
Thanks for your feedback! I have some mixed feelings about your suggestion. After giving it some thought I agree with you that the best place for Private Matters would be on the social tab like @René suggested.
But using a bot 🤖 in Private Matters is where the doubt 🤷‍♂️ begins for me. One of the absolute best features of bunq is their Support crew. A question in Private Matters is more like a chat with a family member. So it always starts with a friendly greeting before I pop the question. I would absolutely hate if a 🤖 would interfere in this interaction. In short: I hope bunq never ever will cut down cost at the expense of Support.
I'm curious what other bunqrs think about this. So let's trow some high fives and comments :)
Have a great evening Casper!

R

John Do I agree. For PERSONAL support there is private matters. If you have any other question you want to find, that’s where together comes in.

Casper-Yellow-Wolf

John Do One of the things that impressed me the most when I started using bunq, was the support chat. An actual person having a conversation with a user as late as 10pm. It still impresses me. It might be the biggest show of dedication to its users. However. As the user base grows and the Together topics grow longer, a user with a question will follow the path of least resistance, in this case (probably), asking questions in the Private Matters chat. It's there, it's quick, instant clarity instead of scrolling through a topic. Support maybe needs to be more efficient for it to work financially. Hiding the Private Matters feature doesn't solve this issue.

I see a bot as a buffer for automateable answers, saving a human doing work that a few lines of code can do (maybe even faster). If I start typing: "Hi! I can't log in...", a bubble could appear reading "Do you have a problem logging in on together.bunq.com?" and maybe another suggestion. This could be adaptive to trending questions. If this is not what I wanted to ask, I can just finish my question and a human will respond to it.
The more this will be used, the more accurately it will predict user questions, leading to faster answers with less friction. Humans still reachable, bot as an assistant.

You have a great one as well, John!