Customer Support

2011 Review of Forex Brokers

When broker representatives interact with current and potential clients, their demeanor should be professional, timely, and leave the client with an enjoyable experience. Outside of the obvious traits of friendliness and competence, we expect broker reps to be efficient in helping clients understand some of the more complex forex concepts (swap, leverage, margin, etc.). Due to the 24/6 nature of the forex market, it is also imperative that brokers offer trading support Sunday through Friday, 24 hours a day. Having established our criteria, we've outlined the brokers offering the best customer support for forex trading.

MB Trading earned the top spot in our 2011 review of customer support. MB Trading covers all of the basic requirements such as 24-hour support and offering a variety of contact methods (chat, phone, email, Skype). Where they begin to set themselves apart is their departmentalization of support — by providing several contact numbers, clients can quickly get you in touch with the appropriate department. When contacting forex support, we're routinely put in touch with the same representatives and can request the assistance of a specific rep who has previous experience dealing with our support topic. MB Trading has routinely demonstrated their attentiveness to customer support, the competence of their representatives, and their ability to quickly resolve issues.

Thinkorswim also comes in with five stars for customer support. In addition to the basic criteria that all forex brokers should be providing, thinkorswim also offered multiple avenues of contact for each specific inquiry; tech support, forex, futures, retirement accounts, even inquires for new accounts. We noticed that by segregating support departments we were able to get in touch with someone who could answer our questions without having to transfer us numerous times or put us on hold. Their site is also easy to navigate and investors can find their exhaustive list of contacts very easy from the front page, or begin a live chat session with one of their representatives. Thinkorswim’s representatives were knowledgeable, prompt, and treated us the same regardless of our prospective account size.

PFG and GFT earn honorable mentions. Both pass our criteria with 24/7 email, phone, and live chat support. Notable for PFG is their email service that reports trade confirmation and exposure. Upon executing orders from both their desktop and mobile platforms, customers instantly receive email notifications detailing the specifics of their position. Additionally our live chat experience with GFT was excellent. They were prompt and give clients the feeling you have a real person on the other end instead of just scripted responses.

Customer service isn’t normally the deciding factor when initially choosing a broker. Typically, a trader is looking to save money on commissions or get access to better trading tools. However, a single bad experience with a brokerage can be the deciding factor in whether or not someone continues to do business with them. Good service is about consistent quality, regardless of net worth. It’s no wonder that these brokers, which are committed to good service, also score well in all of our other categories.