Robinhood is adding “hundreds of additional registered financial representatives,” according to an announcement on the company’s blog. The new employees will be located in Tempe, Ariz., and Southlake, Texas.
The expanded customer service comes as retail trading has grown in popularity and complaints on social media about Robinhood have become commonplace. The goal of the hires will be to reduce customer wait times, as well as build more self-service capabilities. While Robinhood doesn't offer financial advice, a report by Aite Group found that making it easier for clients to self-service increased business efficiency in the wealth management industry.
“Supporting and communicating with our customers—both those new to investing and those with more experience—is a critical part of our responsibility to them,” said Alex Mesa, head of customer experience at Robinhood, in the post. “We’ve more than doubled our support team since January and we’ll continue to grow our teams to provide timely, helpful responses to our customers.”
Robinhood is also expanding its financial literacy resources after an investor committed suicide and “left a note citing confusion with our product,” according to another blog post.
The mayor of Southlake welcomed Robinhood in Tuesday’s announcement. The Texas community also attracted interest from TD Ameritrade, which announced the hiring of call center representatives there earlier this year.