I’m super-pleased to announce the results of SmartMoney’s annual broker survey (subscription required) are in, and once again TradeKing has made a really strong showing. We finished top-3 overall, behind two much pricier industry stalwarts, E*Trade and Fidelity. Even better, we earned the maximum five stars for both trading tools and customer service, and we were the ONLY broker to hit that magic-5 for customer service, making us best in the business in that category. Let me interject here and give a little WOOHOO! We’re really pleased to have our hard work recognized and to have shown so favorably against many bigger and more established players.
SmartMoney’s 2008 broker survey compared a total of sixteen brokerages on their merits across five categories: mutual funds & investment products, banking services, trading tools, research and customer service. SmartMoney (The Wall Street Journal’s Magazine) also restructured its survey this year in a way that made the competition tougher for smaller, upstart firms like TradeKing. Instead of breaking the rankings into two lists – “discount” online brokers, the category we won for the past two years, and “premium” online brokers like Schwab and E*TRADE – this year’s survey mixes up the two categories into a single ranking. We were really pleased to see our total score beat out that of much larger players like TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, OptionsXpress, Scottrade, and Bank of America among many others.
It’s so gratifying to earn top marks for customer service for two reasons. First, service is probably the fastest-disappearing commodity in business these days, so truly good service is becoming surprisingly rare – a situation we’re not at all happy about and have always been committed to fixing. This first point is true because of the second one: great service is disappearing for the simple fact that it’s incredibly difficult to deliver. Great service is for marathon runners who never quit running. You have to stay doggedly committed to great service every day, and that commitment has to sink in with every broker manning the phones, chat or email. It has to shine through in every interaction, too.
It’s easy to see why other firms have let their service slide: it’s expensive, it’s difficult, and occasionally it feels thankless. After all, it only takes one serious flub to erase a whole string of successful service experiences in a customer’s mind, and building up trust after that flub can take a long time, too. For many brokerages, I suppose the philosophy about service has been: why throw too much money down this hole? They’ve set expectations suitably low, and I guess they’re hoping a well-designed website and decent educational tools will do their best to keep clients’ questions at bay.
Well, folks, we couldn’t disagree more. You deserve a great, thoughtfully designed website and exceptional educational tools – AND professional, friendly, prompt, knowledgeable help whenever you need it. If you can get service to check on an Amazon shipment or customize your new Dell PC, how much more critical is it that you get outstanding service when your money is at stake? We’ve been given a huge trust by our clients – their money – and we have no intention of slacking on that trust. It’s actually amazing to us that so many brokers have let the business get so lazy about providing great service. We’re all fired up to be the ones that re-invigorate competition in this long-neglected area of our business.
Bring it on, TD Ameritrade and Scottrade, Schwab and OptionsXpress! We’ll keep raising the bar on you, if you do!
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