Consumer complaints in the crypto industry are not a peripheral nuisance — they are a regulatory flashpoint. In fact, between October 2018 and September 2022, over 8,300 crypto-related consumer complaints have been recorded by the CFPB. There was a significant rise in crypto-related complaints over the last two years. In all these cases, 40% have been related to fraud/scams, 25% to transaction issues, and 16% to inaccessible funds.
In such a situation, it is a matter of urgency for crypto businesses to capture, route, and monitor their consumers’ complaints. Zendesk is a leading customer service software used by businesses all over the world and is at the heart of how crypto businesses deal with this problem. Its performance in this area is a topic worthy of close examination.
What Zendesk Does
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Zendesk is a cloud-based service for customer service and complaint handling, catering to a variety of industries, from online retailers to the financial sector.
In brief, Zendesk is a powerful, cloud-first solution to simplify all customer interactions in one elegant, unified location. The service provides a complete solution: a premier ticketing system, an adaptable help center creation tool, solid live chat functionality, and insightful reporting tools.
The company’s involvement in the crypto sphere is well-documented and uncomplicated. In fact, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Binance, has used Zendesk to manage its customer service, directing users to the service when traditional email channels failed to meet the mark.
Core Complaints Management Features
Zendesk combines all the channels, like live chat, email, phone, social media, and the help center, in one workspace. This allows the agents to see all the interactions with customers, past and present, in one place. There’s no jumping around, and customers don’t have to ask the same questions multiple times. With the power of AI, customers receive fast and correct support with every interaction.
For fintech and crypto businesses in a heavily regulated environment, the complaints workflow is a critical part of the solution. With Zendesk AI, businesses receive peace of mind with fast, compliant, and personal support for banking, insurance, and fintech. The AI agents handle routine tasks, and sensitive issues are handled by trained agents.
A good example of a company that benefits from regulatory alignment is SB Finance, a financial institution in the Philippines. The Central Bank of the Philippines required a centralized system to track and monitor client concerns. SB Finance evaluated five vendors and chose Zendesk Suite Enterprise.
AI-Powered Complaint Handling
Zendesk AI is a robust platform with enterprise-grade capabilities to deliver automated and personalized support through advanced ticket intelligence, intent, and seamless handoffs. It really excels with its product integration for existing Zendesk customers, scalability, enterprise features, compliance, granular permissions, analytics, and language support, as well as smart knowledge suggestions.
Built on the company’s well-known reputation for delivering an enterprise-grade support solution, Zendesk AI has become the go-to solution for fintech and insurance businesses. The company’s AI capabilities include the ability to automatically categorize tickets and deflect routine questions before they become tickets. This is a valuable cost savings for financial services businesses that receive a high volume of inquiries.
Additionally, with the introduction of outcome-based pricing in mid-2024, businesses will be billed only for those issues resolved autonomously by the company’s AI.
Relevance to the Crypto Complaints Landscape
The way that the CFPB handles complaints about crypto-related matters has set a high standard for platforms: it is no longer enough for them to simply record grievances; they must be addressed with auditable evidence.
Of all the crypto-related matters that the CFPB has investigated, phishing and social engineering scams are prominent, as are SIM swapping, romance scams, “pig butchering,” and failures in transaction processing due to price volatility.
Even when fraud is identified early in a transaction, crypto asset businesses claim they are unable to reverse the transaction due to immutable blockchain technology. While Zendesk may not be able to solve immutability, it can ensure that the complaint record is sound.
Limitations
Another big complaint about Zendesk, voiced in many reviews on Trustpilot and Software Advice, is that the price grows rapidly. Additional features such as Explore, Talk, and Guide also require extra payment.
Another disadvantage of using Zendesk for fintech companies that are regulated in the financial industry is that the platform lacks support for audit-ready AI solutions that offer transparent decision paths for automated activities.
Regulated crypto platforms in the financial industry using artificial intelligence to handle tasks such as ticketing, suggesting responses, and solving customer issues are not supported by the platform in terms of providing transparent decision paths.
There is also some irony in that many reviews of Zendesk itself express disappointment in how the company handles complaints. This is not to say that Zendesk is not a good solution, but how good it is will ultimately depend on the cryptocurrency company itself.
Verdict
Zendesk has a good, well-known position as a baseline for complaint management for the financial services industry and is increasingly being used by crypto platforms. It has a good multichannel ticketing system, artificial intelligence, a framework that is compliant, and scalability. It’s a good baseline for any crypto exchange or fintech company serious about making consumer complaints a manageable and auditable process.
It’s not a crypto compliance tool, however, and the artificial intelligence does not have the level of “explainable” decisions that the most heavily regulated environments are demanding.
