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You wouldn't expect that Consumer Reports would recognize a robo advisor for its customer service, but Betterment has succeeded in becoming one of the top 5 best brokerage companies for customer service. Betterment's model has required more customer interaction than many would have expected, but they are doing a great job with it. Of Betterment’s 110 employees there are nearly a dozen dedicated to service. But the company has made customer service a part of the corporate culture and therefore all employees take a rotation every six months answering customer service calls.
Betterment has 100,000 clients and manages $2.6 billion in assets and gets a few hundred customer service calls each day. And, although common wisdom has it that clients prefer not to call, Stein says a number of clients simply prefer to pick up the phone. See: The documented RIA threat, 'phono-advisors’ and their nearly $300 billion of assets. The customer phone calls range from updating new bank routing information to clients who share details about job losses or children heading off to college. It’s worth considering where the phone fits in for Betterment versus other firms. “Unlike traditional advisors that may use the phone as both a sales and service tool, Betterment sells through the web, and then provides clients online and offline tools to be successful. That’s why it is so powerful for traditional advisors to add an online...
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