Investors should call the investors before opening an account, to get more information about the brokerage. If it is hard to get through to a representative, or if the waiting time is long for customer support, the brokerage should probably be avoided by the investor. Those brokerages that can provide the investor with valuable help and information when needed should be chosen. For the active investor who makes big trades frequently, or for the investor who trades in highly volatile stocks, a broker firm that can offer very good responsiveness should be chosen, almost regardless of the trade fees, as the timing of the trades often are more important than the trade fees. The occasional investor on the other hand, who is less concerned about getting marked orders executed at the minute, and who invests in less volatile stocks, can stick with a deep discount broker.
Some brokers only trade in stocks and funds.
Deep discount brokers are likely to concentrate on the stock market, while discount brokers often trade in bonds too. Full service brokers are more likely to have a wider variety of trades, such as stocks, funds, options, zero coupon bonds and CD's. Nothing is more irritating and annoying than waiting, and some brokerages have faster pages than others. A fancy look is worthless when it takes too long to open a page. Downtime is also a problem that several brokerages has had problems with.