Geezeo, I'm Leaving You For Mint

I stayed as long as I could.

I've been with Geezeo for a long time, as online personal finance sites go. Exactly one year ago come Friday, I asked for the first time, Geezeo or Wesabe? Geezeo, with its IKEA-like blocky, brightly colored budget buttons, stood out as the clear winner and I gave them my passwords and log in information so I could finally see all my money, all in one place.

I stuck with them through a bumpy and protracted site overhaul, during which Founder and CEO Peter Glyman singlehandedly held onto my "business" (it's free) by gchatting me periodically and asking for my input.

Even though I hated the new site design, I continued to use them because

1) I was lazy

2) Pete's beyond compare customer service skills.

So even though I'm leaving them now, I urge companies to take note: if you want to attract and keep customers who will write good reviews about you, be like Pete.

He's accessible, friendly, and quick to take action. If I need to talk to him, I can twitter or email him. If I have a Geezeo issue, I can instantly message the always courteous Ruthann DeGutis, who is on gchat throughout the work day. Pete's twitter humanizes him, with observations of his commute to work and interesting links.

When I (hopefully) become a CEO one day, I'm going to practice the Glyman Style of Client Relations. Unfortunately, great customer service did not translate to product. The new site is cluttered, constantly buggy (get a new Java/flash coder!), and they've lost, along with my loving feeling, features I used to praise them for.

Geezeo won the first round against Wesabe because of their product. And they're losing this second round to Mint for the same reason.

Mint And Me

I was Stumbling last night (anyone still use that?) and suddenly a big green Viviti-like page splashed onto my screen. It was Mint.

They were the underdogs in my Geezeo and Wesabe battle last May, early to the online personal finance game but still working out kinks.

Boy have they worked it out! They must have had a plastic surgeon better than Hollywood's finest.

All the things I liked about Geezeo: simplicity, clarity, and a well-oiled interface, have appeared on Mint.

The site is sleek and visually pleasing, in tender pastels featuring - of course - a minty green background. I could tell with a quick glance that the home page had everything I wanted, yet managed to remain uncluttered and easy to delineate. Right in front of your face is the budget, which is the main feature I look for in an online personal finance site. To the side are my accounts with balances updated each time I log on. Below them are my assets, minus my debts, and my total net worth. (My pet peeve with Geezeo was not knowing how much I had versus how much I owed - they merely showed the total net, constantly causing me to panic that I had so little money.) The cash flow is further below my net worth, with idiot-proof red and green bars to show what's going in and what's coming out.

As a bonus, they have a link on the overview to Ways To Save, one of the best features of Mint. For those of us who comparison shop and pinch every percent and penny, Mint does the legwork by showing you other credit cards, bank accounts, and brokerages that might have a better deal, given your spending patterns on Mint. This is also the key to how the site remains free of advertising - if you do happen to switch to these new companies based on their recommendations, Mint gets a commission.

Though it was 2 in the morning, I quickly entered in most of my bank accounts and went to sleep. I woke this morning with an email from Mint already reminding me that my credit card payment was due soon. The switch over has been seamless, though I've spent a bit of time playing with the tags, another function with which they blow Geezeo out of the water in terms of ease and anti-bugginess. (With something as simple as being able to use multiple word tags, instead of one word.)

If anything goes wrong with Mint once this green-hazed honeymoon is over, you'll be the first to know, but I foresee smooth sailing from here on out.