A slight merchant tweak please (I also submitted this through the ‘Help us improve the logo and the name’ link in the transaction). I send some hot cross buns to friends and family for Easter, through Hobbs House Baker, but the transactions are coming up at Hobbs (the clothes shop) and have also resulted in a snoop about Hobbs. Different merchants though! Now if Hobbs sold hot cross buns with their clothes, that’d be an entirely different proposition…!
PS Happy Easter Team Snoop! 
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Hey @charlwillis - thanks for getting in touch! We’ve not forgotten your Hobbs merchant problem - it’s been raised to be fixed … so will be done ASAP (early next week if they guys aren’t already doing it 
)
A bakery in a clothes shop though, would definitely have its benefits!
Hope you and yours have a very happy Easter too 
Ah thank you Cara! No rush - I’m sure you all have more than enough on your hands right now! Much appreciated 
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@charlwillis as a special Easter treat just for you -
our CTO @jem has updated Hobbs just now 
Do let us know if anything’s not right. And hope you have a lovely Sunday
Amazing! Thank you @Cara and thank you @jem! And on Easter Sunday?! Hope the whole Snoop team is getting a well deserved rest as well (and enjoying some chocolate) and thank you for your amazing customer service 
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No worries all - the little things are as important as the big things
Morning team!
Bit confused by the wording on today’s Best Saving Rates Snoop. It says that anything over 1.70% is 
but anything below that is 
, but then goes on to recommend the best instant access account at 1.30% and the best notice account at 1.60% - both lower than the recommended 1.70%?
Thanks! Have a good day Snoopers!
I agree with @charlwillis that this could be worded better.
My additional concern is that when I click the “whole of the market” link it shows me accounts that pay a higher rate of interest than the ones you call out as having the best rate. E.g. instant access calls out Marcus at 1.30 but Moneyfacts lists Ford Money at 1.35.
Hi @charlwillis and @Richard - thanks for the feedback. Your point of view here is super-helpful. On the first point, Snoop’s house view is that you need to aim to earn the inflation rate on your savings. The truth is that’s impossible on easy access savings now - so we will show best in market, but it’s still not really helping keep up with inflation rate. As inflation drops that may become easier. And Richard - on your point, we deliberately didn’t call out Ford - because although it’s FSCS protected, it felt a bit of an odd one to Snoop. Marcus has been well reviewed, has a good online process etc etc - which is why it was the pick. Does that make sense - or do you feel it’s more important just to be about the rate. I hope that explains Snoop’s logic - would love your view. Paul
Thank you Paul! That’s really useful feedback and the Snoop makes a lot more sense now I know that. I still think it will read strangely to other users though and perhaps a bit more transparency in the wording as to the logic behind it would be useful, on both mine and Richard’s observations.
Thanks!
Charlotte
Will do @charlwillis - will take a look. I also owe Snoop an apology. Our friendly robot showed me after my post that the Ford product has actually been withdrawn so the Moneyfacts site hadn’t updated. Once again - Snoop was ahead of me! Marcus is the best rate available right now. That will teach me! Paul
@PaulL always appreciate your answers, thank you.
I’d spotted Ford wasn’t available but made the (wrong) assumption that Moneyfacts knew something I didn’t.
Ford Money is covered by FSCS. In fact for some savers it may be a better bet than Marcus - Ford’s FSCS is only used by the Ford brand whereas savers already using Saga are using Goldman’s FSCS already. (I know I’m teaching you to suck eggs).
The last point is that the Snoop specifically referred to the “best rate”. Perhaps it could refer to the best savings account?
Lastly (again)… I don’t know why Ford would seem a strange choice. Just that it’s not a brand people immediately think of when thinking of savings? Who else might you apply that logic to? Cynergy were top of the easy access best buys until recently- is that a known brand? My Cypriot friends would probably find that strange.
How will that logic apply when you recommend insurance companies to me? There’s a lot more brands there…
When I make financial decisions I sometimes make irrational decisions based on my gut feel (like I don’t know the brand, and therefore ignore the fact it’s protected so settle for a less than optimal rate.
Surely Snoop should err on the side of fact and strip out the irrational emotional connection in order to help me make the best decisions??
Can I trust Snoop to give me the best or do I need to worry that Snoop uses biases?
Update - read this again and I’m sure the answer is just that Snoop becomes more transparent in telling me how it has chosen Marcus as the top pick. Your challenge is in getting that across to me succinctly (clearly not a skill I possess!)
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On the plus side, I enjoyed the video in this morning’s update Snoop (although I expect all video to have sound these days so I spent the first few seconds wondering if I needed to turn sound on before I realised its deliberately silent).
Is ‘the S.N.O.O.P’ now a headquarters and an acronym? Not seen it written like this before? I prefer ‘Snoop’ as a personification of the little robot but perhaps he/she has an identify crisis?!
I think Snoop was a little light headed writing this one Charlotte. It happens, even to a robot. 
Hi Richard - all makes sense. Snoop needs to use fact as much as possible rather than emotion, as you suggest. Having talked it through here, we would have promoted Ford Money if the product were available - I shared my understanding of why we chose Marcus, but as per my earlier post I was wrong! Snoop didn’t select Ford because the Ford product wasn’t available. It’s easier to be purely rational on savings because they are protected, so we will definitely do that in future (and your point on shared FSCS makes sense too).
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Hi Richard. So this is an interesting one - thanks for raising it. So in a nutshell:
- We originally created this as a general Snoop for everyone to understand response.
- It was liked a little less than some of other general Snoops (good learning for us) so last night I switched it to be targeted at people who subscribe to Hearst Mags - so today it’s only in a few hundred people’s feeds.
- We changed the copy last night before the overnight run - and so it appeared to you as targeted while still in the untargeted state
So thank you - you’ve highlighted that we need to make sure that in the relatively unusual situation I’ve just described that we make sure we amend the copy after the Snoop has been deployed to its more targeted audience.
Apologies for the mistake - definitely helpful for us to learn from!
many thanks
Paul
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