One of the key factors in the retail brokerage business is the area of support. In the past, the standard for online brokerages was, ironically, telephone support. However, that soon became too cumbersome with the number of calls fielded by many of the larger brokers surpassing their capabilities.
Userbase’s demands change the support ecosystem
The support ecosystem has been able to change with the change in the demands of the user base. Once email started to become more popular among the clientele of the broker, it became the default method of communication. When online chat became commonplace, it too became a key way for brokers to communicate with their clients.
Now that we are well and truly in the era of social media, chatbots powered by neural networks are becoming more and more commonplace. The biggest change in the last few years is that regarding the usage of mobile phone apps. More and more people around the world are primarily using phone apps to communicate with friends, family and even work peers.
While this has been going on, support staff has been slow to adapt to this new trend, due to the overreliance on desktop support infrastructure. That is why Plus500 has decided to start using Whatsapp to power it’s latest support database and it is fast finding itself a place in the hearts and minds of its clients.
Whatsapp dominating globally, more companies getting onboard
Whatsapp started out small, but has quickly become a behemoth and was bought out by Facebook not too long ago. It has over 1.5 billion users across the globe and the average user accesses Whatsapp around 23 times a day. It is the third most downloaded app on Android and businesses are starting to take notice. In fact, Plus500 is one of a growing number of companies that have started using Whatsapp Business, the chat app’s business back end service. It is one of 3 million businesses to do so.
Plus500 has begun offering a full 24 hour, 7 days a week support service for its customers using the popular social messaging app and says that it is the first CFDs broker in the world to integrate Whatsapp into its customer support ecosystem.
Initially, the service will only support the Egnlish language, as well as a few select European languages. Spanish is one of the most popular languages in the world and will most likely be one of the front runners for the company to implement alongside English.
Live Chat and Email are also available with phone support and is extremely active on its social media accounts, namely Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. One of the key factors that differentiate Plus500 form competitors in this regard is that all their customer support options are available from both the company’s website and its extremely popular trading platform.
Adding in Whatsapp has only helped it service its client base better and more efficiently and in a way that the newer clients are used to communicating. In short, it is taking care of business – both on the front end and the back end.
