Evaluation of the best customer support the cryptocurrency world has to offer Voxwall Follow May 2, 2018 · 6 min read

We chose 7 cryptocurrency exchanges with the best customer support to use for our test. The exchanges were chosen and evaluated based on their response times, resolution times and ability to solve the problem the customer is facing. These are the results:

Part 1 — Live chat

Out of 7 exchanges that we chose 5 of them had customer support and only 2 of those 5 work 24/7.

This was surprising to see in the fast growing blockchain scene, because nowadays it seems like even corner stores have a hotline you can call. Having set working hours for a global website is impractical for the international customers.

Note: We used the first non-automated response to determine the response time, while the resolution time is when the conversation ended. It does not necessarily mean that the issue was resolved.

The fastest response times are Kraken’s and BTCC’s however Kraken’s customer support is not 24/7 and was unavailable during European working hours, which was extremely worrying, because Kraken is nearing the top 10 by trade volume (24h) and their customer base is very diverse, with the majority of people coming from Europe.

Coinroom has excellent response time, but there are some hiccups with the chat system. At times you get randomly disconnected, without any warning or error message, which unfairly influences their resolution time, in some cases nothing was resolved.

OKEx has the most pleasant people and they always have the answer to your question, whether you would be asking in Chinese or in English, however they have quite long queues during certain times throughout the day. But seeing as OKEx is usually nr. 3 by trade volume (24h), we must give it some leeway.

KuCoin has capable support, that are able to answer in English just as well as in Chinese and their helper robot Ku Junior is a fun addition to their support team. Even though he can answer only the most basic of questions, you always have the option for “human service”. But there’s a huge problem with KuCoin and it’s the ridiculous queues. A 20-people queue can take up to a couple of hours to move through, which is unacceptable for live chat service. It is also surprising to see queues that long in the first place. KuCoin is not that big of an exchange compared to OKEx. Floating at nr. ~35 by trade volume (24h), it shouldn’t have these massive queues.

Kraken, BTCC and OKEx all have excellent troubleshooting. I would expect nothing less, after all the questions we asked were very basic.

Coinroom’s disconnection issues were annoying to say the least. The chat would end without any response whatsoever and the chatbox would say that “Customer service ended the chat”. It’s hard to believe that customer service could be so rude, so we give them the benefit of the doubt.

Because the chats were disconnected without the problem being solved and the question left unanswered their troubleshooting is lacking.

KuCoin’s customer service is a real gamble. It’s great when it works, when you are able to get in touch with someone, but most of the time you get put into an insanely long queue which moves at a snail’s pace and once you are finally close to getting your problem solved you get bounced back up right where you began. At often times you get put at an even further spot. Which is a real slap in the face when you know the queue will take a couple hours to move up again.

There were times where the queues were simply of unreasonable length and it wouldn’t possible to wait them out. The problems we were having were not solved and so KuCoin’s troubleshooting is lacking.

Out of all these impressive exchanges there’s an apparent lack of reliable and quick live chat service. While Kraken and BTCC have the correct idea the others still have a way to go. After long consideration we decided to pick BTCC as the exchange with the fastest and most reliable live chat support. Their information was quick and on point, they did not have unmanageable queues, representatives were cheerful and polite. And the best thing of all is that they work 24/7. Kraken is right behind as our second choice; however, their response times could use a little boost.

Part 2 — email

Sometimes when the chat queues are long, or a more complex issue arises it’s more convenient to get support via email or a ticket system. We reviewed the 7 exchanges and their email and ticket system response times.

As expected BTCC has excellent response times, their information was extensive, well written and complimented with various links to their wide knowledgebase.

Live coin has an impressively fast ticket system. It did feel like chatting sometimes. One gripe that I have with it though is that you can not receive notifications to your email address when the agent replies. It’s inconvenient if you’re on the go, but it makes sense that you would receive the answer on the website that you’re inquiring about in the first place.

Coinroom’s email service is considerably quick. The replies are short, concise and easy to understand. I would rather use their email service than their live chat.

Bitstamp makes up in email service for its non-existent live chat. They answer quickly but they do their research as well. They went above and beyond for a customer who was asking an incredibly simple and obvious question. I am positive that they resolve most of their customers questions on first time contact, because not only do they answer the original inquiry, but they also provide a lot of other information that the customer might need.

KuCoin takes more than 24 hours to respond. An eternity in a cryptocurrency marketplace. Their service is alright, but their response times are atrocious, and we hope they start working on them soon. As for now, a response time like that is not even worth including in the chart, because it’s nowhere close its competitors.

We were a little surprised to see OKEx taking almost 6 hours to answer an email on average. We think they just prioritize their live chat first, whereas emails come second. It makes a lot of sense to use a system like that, if you’re under an extremely heavy load of customers. After all, you need a good reason to wait an hour for a live chat agent.

Gate.io seems to be using a very old email service model, it feels like they’re simply aiming for times under 24h, which are nowhere close to acceptable in a fast-moving cryptocurrency market. Coupled with the lack of live chat they come at the last place.

All in all, the most responsive and informative messages were Kraken’s and BTCC’s, closely behind were bitstamp and livecoin, both had excellent response times, however when you don’t have live chat this becomes a must. Therefore, we hope more exchanges follow in the example of BTCC. Their customer support is active 24/7, their team is surely qualified and very informative. But because they only trade in BTCC you will probably have to look for alternatives.