Nikolas Sargeant
Today’s highly automated cryptocurrency exchanges offer some great advantages to consumers, especially in terms of their speed. Much like modern banking apps, these platforms operate around the clock, enabling customers to open an account and trade digital assets 24/7, with most swaps taking only a few seconds to complete.
Most crypto exchanges offer a very smooth trading experience, or at least they do when they’re running as they should. But the crypto world is not exactly known for its smooth operations, with delayed and canceled transactions occurring all too frequently for most people’s liking, and that’s when the problems begin to surface.
Invariably, when something goes wrong, there’s very little one can do except wait and see. While most platforms do offer some kind of support, users are almost inevitably forced to interact with some kind of chatbot, or else craft an email and sit around twiddling their thumbs, sometimes for days on end, before they’ll ever see some kind of (often inadequate) response.
So this begs the question. Does the near-instantaneous trading experience mean such “faceless” platforms offer an altogether better experience? It seems unlikely that most users would respond in the affirmative.
Chatbots Are For Crackpots
Fact is, there’s plenty of data around to suggest otherwise. According to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an overwhelming 83% of consumers crave the kind of human connection that most crypto platforms skimp out on, and would probably give anything to be able to deal with a human.
No doubt one of the main reasons for this sentiment is that chatbots simply don’t provide the kind of assistance people need. The same CFPB report shows that just over 80% of consumers leave chats feeling even more frustrated than they were before they started chatting, due to the inability of these tools to resolve their problems. Moreover, 78% says that they still want to talk to a human after engaging with a chatbot, but very few crypto exchanges even have the ability to make that happen.
We can’t be completely dismissive of AI chatbots. They do have some advantages. For instance, most chatbots can respond to users instantly, as soon as they’ve finished typing out their complaint, and they can sometimes provide very quick answers to common questions, such as issues with opening an account.
AI chatbots have their place. When it comes to handling password resets, or routing users to the right human agent, processing refunds and so on, they can sometimes perform these tasks quite efficiently, perhaps even faster than a human would.
But let's face it, that’s where the benefits end. For someone who is operating in a high-stakes trading environment, where every second counts, no amount of automation can make up for the disaster that befalls them when a critical trade fails to go through, causing them to lose hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in a missed opportunity.
Only Humans Have The Answer
Most professional crypto traders are all too familiar with a litany of common issues that occur when they’re trying to time the market to make millions off of that split-second arbitrage opportunity. For instance, their newly deposited funds might get stuck “pending” for days on end, or their trades will be processed incredibly slowly, leaving them exposed to high price slippage as a result of the delay.
Crypto exchanges are plagued with all kinds of hassles, in fact. Delayed KYC verifications, where the platform might suddenly demand some additional document due to the user’s trading volume passing some unseen milestone, accounts being frozen because a transaction was flagged as “suspicious”, withdrawal limits that are insufficient for trader’s needs, slow settlements from crypto to fiat and vice versa. And when these things happen, the support service is nowhere to be seen, or the chatbot continually directs you to a useless answer page that doesn’t fix your problem.
Automation can be good, but it can never make up for the reassurance of the human touch, which comes in the shape of a dedicated account manager available by phone.
When it comes to complex, sensitive and emotional problems, or issues that are too nuanced for any chatbot to make sense of, customers need and want to speak to a human. After all, humans possess qualities around emotional intelligence, empathy and they’re much better able to understand context, making them uniquely suited to solve almost any kind of situation the customer may have.
With a personal account manager, customers gain urgent assistance, and most importantly, reassurance when dealing with high-stakes problems such as accounts being hacked or potentially fraudulent transactions. They’ll also get much more responsive assistance in terms of troubleshooting any technical issues they may have with the platform.
It’s true that AI chatbots have come a long way, but they’re still redundant when it comes to any kind of incident that requires problem-solving skills and human judgment. Customers who are stressed out with complex problems will only become more frustrated with a repetitive chatbot. They need flexibility, not a rules-based engine. And they also need a more sympathetic response.
No Nasty Surprises
Most crypto exchanges try to make a big thing about how fast and responsive their platforms are, but the reality is that much of the automation is intended to benefit them, rather than their users. They shift the burden of trading and troubleshooting onto their users as part of an effort to keep their costs as low as possible, all in order to maximize their profits.
Fortunately, not all crypto platforms are alike, and there is an alternative to the traditional exchange in the shape of over-the-counter trading desks, which strive to maintain a more personal touch.
One great example is On-Demand Trading, which offers a dedicated human account manager for each user, regardless of whether they’re trading hundreds or even millions of dollars. The service is much like dealing with a private broker for crypto transactions, and so instead of placing orders on a public orderbook, which leaves traders vulnerable to price impact, they communicate their order to another human, who then facilitates their buy or sell order efficiently and securely and with complete privacy.
While it may not be instantaneous like some crypto exchanges, the personal touch more than makes up for the slight delay, with a real human there to walk users through all of the steps required for onboarding, KYC, funding their transaction and executing it. On-Demand Trading guarantees settlement on the same day, usually in a few hours or less, and users will not experience any slippage. The price quoted is the exact price they’ll pay. The account manager effectively locks in the agreed rate, the timeline of the trade and the volume, so nothing is left to chance. And there are no hidden fees like those found on traditional exchange platforms either.
Moreover, OTC trade desks aren’t subject to the same limitations of crypto exchanges. Account managers can provide contextual updates on market conditions, token availability and execution timing. They can facilitate trades of any amount, without experiencing any slippage, which is something that’s all but impossible on a crypto exchange. Even the biggest exchange platforms with the most liquidity, such as Binance, still experience slippage. Everything is done in private, with encrypted communications and institutional-grade compliance.
Customer Experience Is King
Faceless crypto exchanges are designed for speed, but this comes at the cost of a poor customer experience in almost every other aspect that counts. Speed can be beneficial in the highly volatile crypto markets, but whatever advantages such platforms provide are often eroded when any problems or issues occur. On the other hand, traders who opt for a more personalized OTC experience will avoid any and all kinds of hiccups, leaving them free to focus exclusively on their investment strategy, safe in the knowledge that they’ll have a friendly human face they can turn to the moment the going gets tough.
