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Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand how companies like that can thrive (but many do). If I have to pick up the phone to solve a problem even once, I'm angry. If I have to call them twice, I'm looking at alternatives. I may decide not to switch if the alternatives are even worse...but, I'm looking to get out of the shitty relationship I find myself in with that company. (This frustration is fresh in my mind because Security Metrics just told me to call them about PCI compliance...I refused, and will be going elsewhere for that service.)

Big finance seems particularly bad at user-facing technology. Which doesn't really give me confidence in their back end tech.

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> If I have to pick up the phone to solve a problem even once, I'm angry.

> If I have to call them twice....I'm looking to get out of the shitty relationship I find myself in with that company. [emphasis mine]

You are way too sensitive and demanding, IMHO. You're probably a developer: is this how you want people thinking of you when you inevitably push a bug? I can understand looking elsewhere after a pattern of problems and repeated frustration with no improvement, but getting pissed off just because you have to talk to someone one or two times is just unreasonable. Have a little empathy for the people on the other side.

I wasn't saying anything about demanding perfection. I was saying that talking to someone on the phone is the worst customer service experience in common use.

It is because I have empathy for the person on the other side that I'm angry at the corporation for making me have a conversation I really don't want to have. I am always nice to the person I speak to, despite being angry at the company they work for for wasting my time and making me interact with them in a way I really don't want to.

My anger is over the fact that I've been given no option but a phone call.

> I was saying that talking to someone on the phone is the worst customer service experience in common use.

I disagree with that pretty strongly. The phone is the second-best method for communicating a complex or unusual problem, only behind a face-to-face meeting.

Anyway, the worst customer service experience in common use is actually the fixed-option support menu (that usually obscures how to contact a real person).

The real determiner of good customer service is how the process was designed and how empowered the representatives are to fix your problem. Case in point: Amazon's famous customer service. I had an unusual problem with an order recently. Their chat support utterly failed to help me after several tries, leaving me very frustrated. Their email support couldn't help me either, but explained I needed to call. It turns out only their phone support is empowered to escalate things to someone who could help, plus the it was much easier to relate my issue to them. None of that frustration had anything to do with the phone vs. chat vs. email, but everything to do with Amazon's (poor) support choices.

> My anger is over the fact that I've been given no option but a phone call.

I can understand feeling frustration at that, but not anger.

I may have a more pained relationship with phones than average. I hate talking on the phone.

Because their product is SO SO SO much better than the alternative, it's worth the hassle.

Not really. They aren't better than Fidelity or Schwab for the vast majority of people, their brokerage accounts are all very, very similar.

Plus Schwab and Fidelity both offer better additional products. Both offer totally free, no catches, ATM reimbursement, no minimum balances, no fees alternatives to a checking account. Fidelity also offers a no annual fee 2% cash back on everything credit card.

Vanguard has a different cooperate structure, however, if that's important to you.

I'd love to hear a case made for Fidelity/Schwab being even with Vanguard. My understanding is that Vanguard's expense ratio is the best (and it goes without saying this makes a big difference over time). Has Fidelity's expense ratio recently moved to match Vanguard's?

https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/investing-ideas/index-...

This is obviously a Fidelity marketing spiel...but it's not a lie...Fidelity's active funds (which they made their name on) are definitely more expensive than Vanguard, but if you buy their passive index funds, you basically get equivalent expense ratios. (Same is true at Schwab.) And IMO, their website is far better than Vanguard's. I'll give Vanguard credit for jump starting passive investing for the little guy, but they aren't significantly different than their competition anymore.

Schwab recently introduced much lower fees on their index ETF's. According to this, they're lower or equal to Vanguard (depending on how much you invest).

https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/m/indexfunds.html

>My understanding is that Vanguard's expense ratio is the best

Not true.

http://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/look-whos-got-the-lo...

>The $96.4 billion Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FUSEX), which tracks the S&P 500 Index, will drop its annual expense ratio by 0.5 basis point. The gross fee is now 0.10%, with a current net fee of 0.095% due to fee waivers. That will fall to 0.09% on July 1. In comparison, $45 billion Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX) has an expense ratio of 0.16%

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/vanguard-vs-fideli...

Fidelity also offer iShares ETFs (also low expense funds) as well as their own low expense ETFs commission free.

I can't comment on Schwab because I don't use them but from what I hear they have very similar offerings for low cost mutual funds and ETFs.

There was also just a commission price war a month or so ago initiated by Fidelity and as a result most brokerages dropped their commission significantly.

From what I understand Vanguard offers more services if you have a profolio over $1 million.

I'm very happy with Fidelity. I only purchase low cost index ETFs through them. You're going to pay more if you want active managed funds, but that's not the topic of discussion.

Even if you don't use their brokerage services you should use either Fidelity or Schwab's checking account. Really, a no brainer, banks don't offer anything even close to as good.

It's very competitive market nowadays and as another commenter pointed out, Fidelity has a much better website.

EDIT: What I meant by "their brokerage accounts are all very, very similar" I really mean "their brokerage account offerings are all very, very similar in price for someone interested in investing in low expense ratio index funds."

You can't really switch 401k providers when your employer picks them.

Every time I've had a 401k provided by work, there were multiple options from multiple providers. Is that not common?

That said, we probably agree that it's a market without a lot of competitive pressure, and that often results in poor customer service (just as in the case of telcos).

> Is that not common?

It probably depends on what stage the company is in. My employer relatively recently went public, but we only have one choice of provider.

You should not get angry over such small things. Not good for your health, or for any other purpose.

I try to choose service providers that won't demand I talk to them on the phone. It works out OK. I very rarely have to talk to strangers on the phone.

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