Another fun takeaway in the book, which is one of the non-obvious things about the brokerage industry: Schwab was a *marketing* shop, with one extremely core product/pricing innovation that mattered in early years, but very much a marketing shop. It dominated Schwab's concerns.
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This is just amazing to me in so many ways: the desired and delivered customer experience in the early days: Operator: "Thank you for calling Charles Schwab." A retail customer: "My account number is [7 digits]. 2,000 shares of IBM at limit of 57. *disconnects from call*"
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And a few hours later Schwab would call you back: Operator: "Filled 1,000 shares of IBM at 57; one left. Is this correct?"
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They did material work in call centers to specialize such that e.g. only operators with broker licenses took orders, but since they were expensive, if you called and asked for a quote ("What is IBM trading at?") you got routed to effectively (cheap, tier 1) CS.
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