Customers expect speedy responses and a seamless service experience in today's hyper-connected world.
Traditional 9-to-5 customer support is no longer enough for many businesses as more companies operate globally and customer expectations rise.
In a time when customer experience can define a company’s success, offering 24/7 customer service can be a crucial component for your business to stay competitive.
Imagine a customer needing help with your product after business hours or in a different time zone, only to find no help or resources available. This can result in frustration, a lack of engagement, or even customer churn. With competition just a few clicks away, not offering around-the-clock support can harm your business.
Offering 24/7 customer service ensures your customers will get the help they need when they need it, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and a more loyal customer base.
In this article, we’ll share what we’ve learned by rolling out 24/7 customer service for companies worldwide. We'll explore the advantages of expanding your support coverage and provide strategies for implementing 24/7 customer service, regardless of your company's size.
24/7 customer service means a company has the people and resources available to provide help anytime customers need it, any day of the week. With around-the-clock support, customers get faster responses because support is always available, even on weekends and holidays.
Many companies offer 24/7 customer service as a competitive advantage to keep their customers happy. Businesses that operate a critical service might find 24/7 customer service to be a high priority early on.
This type of support can be offered by both bots and/or human agents as well as self-help resources. Offshore support teams can help companies with customers around the world provide customer support outside of your normal business hours.
24/7 customer service ensures help is available when it’s needed, resulting in more satisfied customers and a healthier overall business. Let's take a closer look at some of the benefits.
Expectations are higher than ever, and broadening your support hours is a good way to meet your customers' needs.
Answering inquiries quickly shows customers you care, and it relieves any stress and pressure they may have about an issue much sooner, ultimately strengthening the trust they have in your business. The more satisfied your customers are, the longer they will stick around as loyal customers.
Offering around-the-clock customer support allows businesses to assist customers no matter where they’re located.
Providing support in different time zones makes a business more accessible to a global audience, which can be a competitive advantage and help increase sales.
Many companies use timely responses and high-quality support to increase sales. Imagine shopping for a car and walking through the dealership for several minutes without anyone acknowledging you or offering to help.
You’ll probably be frustrated, and you might even drive to the next dealership to shop for a car. Prospective customers will have questions, and the faster you can address those, the quicker you can convert them to paying customers.
Incidents happen, but how you respond to them can make or break your relationship with customers. It could be a data hack or a major outage that takes your website down.
Whatever the case, a 24/7 support team is a great asset for your incident response plan as it enables you to communicate promptly with customers instead of leaving them in the dark.
A good incident response process can turn a negative situation into a positive customer experience, and your support agents are key players in those stressful scenarios.
The more available your support team is, the shorter your response times will be, and customers like getting answers fast.
Delayed response times not only frustrate customers, but they can actually cause more work for your support team when customers submit multiple or duplicate inquiries through various channels.
For example, if a customer emails you and you don’t respond for several days, that may turn into multiple emails or phone calls and end with a frustrated customer and an over-burdened support team.
Traditional 24/7 customer service involves hiring additional staff to cover all hours of the day.
However, there are various ways to do that. Additionally, many companies employ modern technology like AI and chatbots to address customer needs after business hours.
How you decide to offer 24/7 support depends on your company's and customers' needs. While AI and bots are considerably cheaper than hiring internal staff or an outsourcing team, your customers may require more hand-holding at all hours of the day.
Make sure you truly understand your audience and what they need before moving forward with offering 24/7 support, as you could make some costly decisions that aren’t quite solving the problems you need them to.
Not every business needs 24/7 right away, but it’s likely you’ll need to offer it at some point in your company’s journey. Here are some things you should consider to help determine if 24/7 should be a priority.
Building a 24/7 customer service team takes a strategic approach that starts with an effective recruitment process.
It takes a strong understanding of your business needs, a plan for retaining talent, and offering the right support channels that work for your company and your customers.
Here are some best practices for hiring a 24/7 customer service team.
Hiring customer support agents requires a clear vision and understanding of your business goals. The wrong hires can hurt your team and overall business. It's crucial to hire support agents who fit culturally and have the necessary skills.
This holds true whether you’re hiring in-house or bringing on an outsourced team. In either case, you’re bringing on an extension of your support team, so they need to be the right fit.
Tips:
Hiring is time-consuming and costly. All of that effort can go to waste if you don’t have a solid employee retention plan in place. Keeping your support agents happy will create a stronger workforce and happier customers.
Tips:
Onboarding is your chance to start off on the right foot with new hires, and ongoing training is where they can continue to grow and provide additional value.
Your onboarding plan should give them everything they need to be successful in their job. Onboarding should include learning your product or service, the software and tools required to do the job, and your company culture and tone of voice.
Ongoing training can help employees learn new skills and grow.
Tips:
A 24/7 support model should include multiple channels. That doesn’t mean you need to offer support on all channels, but you need to figure out which support channels are right for you and your customers.
At larger companies, agents often specialize in a channel. For example, you may have a team of agents who focus solely on live chat and another team focused on email support.
Tips:
A robust knowledge base is a great asset for customers who want to solve their own issues around the clock.
Self-serve support not only helps customers find answers quicker, but it also deflects incoming tickets, reducing the workload on your support team.
Tips:
Not every industry or company needs to offer 24/7 support. Industries that tend to offer 24/7 support include healthcare, financial services, travel and hospitality, telecommunications, and utilities and energy.
A round-the-clock support model is most effective for companies that offer a continuously available product or service. Whether or not you offer 24/7 support depends on your company’s goals, product experience, and the demand for efficient and convenient support.
It might be necessary for your business, or it might simply be a beneficial addition to attract more customers.
Key factors to consider:
24/7 support is a strategic investment that can significantly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. By using the right technology, offering the necessary channels, and hiring a distributed team with the right skills, you can provide great customer service around the clock.
A commitment to 24/7 support meets the demands of today’s global and fast-paced market and positions your company as a customer-centric and reliable partner.
PartnerHero has helped companies implement 24/7 customer service all around the world. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t regarding this decision and investment. Reach out if you're considering implementing around-the-clock support to learn more about how we can help.
