Customer support staff swamped during market swings — exchange execs

Crypto market turbulence can be an immensely stressful time for customer support staff at crypto exchanges, with companies vastly bolstering headcounts just to meet demand during surges. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Alex Harper, co-founder and CEO of Australian crypto exchange SwyftX said that “no matter what your role title is [...] no one was above customer support at Swyft."

He said that he, along with staff members from human resources and the CFO have had to work late into the night on occasion to assist their customer support teams when markets go crazy, explaining:

“Elon Musk quotes posts about Dogecoin, you get seven times daily signups”.

Harper explained that SwyftX strives for a two-minute response time, “given customers need to have questions answered and understand things.”

He also noted that their customer staff team now makes up over a third of their headcount, offering the ability to provide 24/7 support.

Leigh Travers, CEO of Binance Australia, told Cointelegraph that Binance’s customer support team has “expanded” to keep up with customer demand, and given how new cryptocurrency is for even those working in customer support, investing in their training and development is a priority.

Travers suggested that customer support departments are prioritized in the company, describing them as “the window to the entire Binance platform,” recognizing their work as vital to the success of the company.

“Team leaders and country managers participate in a user centric training program to understand the role of customer support and protect users and receive first hand customer experiences.”

Travers explained that due to unpredictable events in the crypto market such as the Terra Luna and UST “unwind” causing a dramatic “spike” in demand for customer support; it’s imperative that the customer support team are ready for a large influx of customer inquiries at any moment.

Travers said he has also jumped behind the deck of the Binance chat support and directly “responding to user inquiries,” in order to better understand how it works behind the scenes, adding this was a vital part of ensuring customer support can match the demand.

Related reading: Mental health and crypto: How does volatility affect well-being?

Travers explained that when markets stabilize customer support staff take advantage of the down period to utilize the “quieter time” creating “explainer blogs and FAQs to give users better easily accessible information.”

He added that the onboarding process can be the most demanding for customer support workers “regardless of the market conditions, including whether it’s a bull or bear market” their customers always “want to be onboarded quickly and efficiently.”