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Vanguard seems to have gone a bit too far with cost-cutting in the customer services department. One of my most frustrating recent experiences was dealing with

by ilyagr 10y ago

Vanguard seems to have gone a bit too far with cost-cutting in the customer services department. One of my most frustrating recent experiences was dealing with Vanguard's website and customer service. There were all kinds of issues, some minor annoyances, others serious time sinks. Here's an excerpt from a long and boring story: ... One day, I couldn't log in to their website. Attempting to go through "forgot my password" had me fill out a long form with security question. I filled it out, pressed submit, and was presented with the same form, but blank. No error message, nothing else. I thought their website must be broken that day, tried again the next day with the same result. After doing this a few times, I called them. Turns out, my account got into some invalid state. It took them more than a week after that to figure out what was wrong with the account and fix it. Then, my account fixed, I tired to buy some eft-s. Website replies: "Cannot perform this transaction, call us for assistance". I think that's a temporary outage, try again the next day. I called them again, waited a while to get an agent, found out they needed some more documents from me. I sent them in, but there was no way to find out if they were happy with the documents on their website ...

SwellJoe 10y ago
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.
- hueving 10y ago
  You can't really switch 401k providers when your employer picks them.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    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).
    - kibibyte 10y ago
      > 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.
- chillydawg 10y ago
  Because their product is SO SO SO much better than the alternative, it's worth the hassle.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    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.
    - ellyagg 10y ago
      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?
      - tarlinian 10y ago
        https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/investing-ideas/index-funds 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.
      - cschmidt 10y ago
        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 https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/m/indexfunds.html
- obstinate 10y ago
  You should not get angry over such small things. Not good for your health, or for any other purpose.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    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.
- Chaebixi 10y ago
  > 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.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    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.
    - Chaebixi 10y ago
      > 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.

by ilyagr 10y ago

SwellJoe 10y ago

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.

hueving 10y ago
You can't really switch 401k providers when your employer picks them.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  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).
  - kibibyte 10y ago
    > 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.
chillydawg 10y ago
Because their product is SO SO SO much better than the alternative, it's worth the hassle.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  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.
  - ellyagg 10y ago
    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?
    - tarlinian 10y ago
      https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/investing-ideas/index-funds 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.
    - cschmidt 10y ago
      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 https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/m/indexfunds.html
obstinate 10y ago
You should not get angry over such small things. Not good for your health, or for any other purpose.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  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.
Chaebixi 10y ago
> 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.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  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.
  - Chaebixi 10y ago
    > 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.