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We live in a time of convenience where information is readily available around-the-clock. Almost everything can be obtained on-demand and personalized, and customers have grown to expect immediate answers. According to Hubspot…
90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as essential or very important when they have a customer service question. 60% of customers define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less.
Scaling your team to provide the 24/7 customer support that consumers desire is not in the cards for every business, but if your company is struggling to keep up with support tickets or you’re taking on larger clients, it’s worth the time to figure out if 24/7 support is right for you. Before we get into the benefits of 24/7 support and if/how you should provide it, let’s walk through what 24/7 support means on a deeper level.
What is 24/7 support?
24/7 support (also known as 24/7 customer service or 24/7 technical support) declares that consumers can get answers in real-time as soon as they come up. It means that when customers have a problem - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - they can reach out to customer support for immediate solutions. To name a few options, companies often offer 24/7 support through chatbots, a knowledge base, live chat, or embedded messaging. The sole purpose of a 24/7 support model is to ensure that a customer is able to get their issue(s) resolved no matter what day or time it is.
Offering 24/7 support is important for businesses because it keeps customers satisfied, which turns them into loyal, repeat customers. A 24/7 support team is equipped to handle support queries faster than a traditional, 9-5 workforce, resulting in drops in first response time and average resolution time KPIs. Does your business need 24/7 customer support? Keep reading to find out!
When does your business need to consider providing 24/7 customer support?
For some businesses, offering 24/7 support is essential. For others, it’s a decision made based on growth or customer demands. In some industries such as healthcare, travel, insurance, or security, these sectors necessitate that customers have support available to them day and night. Besides the obvious reasons someone might need unending support, there are a few questions you can ask when determining if 24/7 customer support is right for you:
- Do you offer products internationally, or do you want to?
- Do you have customers that belong to different geographic locations or time zones?
- Does your customer base necessitate support past normal business hours?
- Have you scaled so much that your team can no longer answer every ticket within standard operating hours?
- Do you offer products or services that need to be addressed as soon as possible, no matter the time?
- Are your products or services time-sensitive?
Answering yes to any one of those questions means that 24/7 customer support could be valuable to you and your customers, and help your business to continue growing. 24/7 support is an investment. It requires hiring a team, onboarding and thoroughly training those agents, and purchasing the right tools to bring success. You can also outsource to a support team with expertise in customer service so you don’t have to start from scratch and work out all the kinks. Either way, 24/7 customer support provides many benefits. Let’s check out four of them.
What are the benefits of providing 24/7 customer support?
Depending on your business and your customers, there are different benefits that offering round-the-clock customer service can bring. Here are four of the main advantages:
1. It makes your customers happier
A 24/7 customer support team that is trained well is better at handling and resolving customer issues including answering tickets quicker and more efficiently. Round-the-clock support demonstrates a positive commitment to your customers. The takeaway is that customer satisfaction increases and your customer effort score (CES) decreases. Your CES is a single-item metric that measures how much effort a customer has to exert to get an issue resolved, a request fulfilled, a product purchased/returned, or a question answered. Since 24/7 customer support is a customer-centric model catered to the needs of the consumer, it improves every aspect of customer service.
2. It gives you competitive advantages
Offering round-the-clock support when your competitors do not means that more consumers will choose your business for convenience, inevitably increasing your revenue. According to customer experience expert, Ruby Newell-Legner, it takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one negative experience. If customers are in need of immediate support and agents are not available, or if they have to wait for a long time for agents to reach their part of the queue, then this negative experience will not be easily forgotten and will impact their perception of your brand.
3. It eases the pressure off your 9-5 team
If your team is overwhelmed with support tickets, it cuts back on their time to take care of other responsibilities and manage customer acquisition instead of customer retention. A 24/7 support team assists in maintaining customer loyalty and keeping your current customers coming back, while your 9-5 team can focus with a growth mentality on other efforts to continue expanding your business.
4. It allows you to cater to a global audience
Depending on where your products and services are offered, you may require inbound/outbound call centers or both. You’ll also need to consider your customer base and if you’ll need bilingual support agents or help centers in different countries. Global expansion is an exciting opportunity for a business that signifies success in being able to scale and offer your services in international locations. 24/7 customer support makes global expansion a possibility.
How to provide 24/7 support to your customers - Our Top 5 Tips
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably seriously considering 24/7 support. Depending on you and your customers’ specific needs, there are different types of support you can offer to fulfill them:
1. 24/7 Outsourcing
After experiencing serious growth in 2019, CASELY came to Influx to build upon the momentum. They were looking to relieve some pressure from their 5-person internal team by expanding their support coverage to offer 24/7 customer support with reinforcements at peak sales seasons. Influx built a 24/7 fully-scalable extension of CASELY’s existing support team with 4 full-time agents and 2 part-time agents, adding an extra layer of support to CASELY’s internal team. Influx was able to help with the seasonal backlog, resulting in a reduction of first response time by 10x in the first month of service while experiencing 16,954% growth!
Consider outsourcing customer support to a business with teams in different time zones all across the globe. Influx likes to use the follow the sun model to ensure that work never stops and there is always immediate support available.
2. Think global from the outset
Each variation in processes between departments and offices represents complexities that will carry over into global expansion. With an international perspective in mind, it’s important to lay out your process for the way your business operates and to stick to it - changing fluidly as one when needed. Scaling up will be considerably simpler if you can confidently lay out client processes in advance.
3. Offer live chat support
Live chat improves the support experience for customers, boosts productivity, and increases customer engagement. A successful chat support agent will need different skills to communicate effectively with customers. Things like excellent communication, multitasking, software navigation, and of course…empathy. Investing in a live chat support team prioritizes customers and proves that you care about helping them solve their problems.
4. Optimize self-service
Expanding your customer care crew is typically related to offering round-the-clock assistance. There are other ways to provide 24/7 help, though. Businesses of all sizes may scale their customer service with the help of a low-cost solution: developing a strong customer self-serve module. In reality, customers frequently choose self-service when looking for solutions. Something as simple as strengthening your knowledge base or perfecting the FAQ section on your website can be helpful enough to lower support tickets and ensure your customers are able to find answers on their own.
5. Consider phone support
Regardless of all the support options at your disposal, the majority of people still prefer to speak in real-time with a live person. Phone support still holds the highest customer satisfaction rating at 91%. (GetFeedback) An empathetic rapport means making your customers’ issues your own, and showing the caller that they aren’t just another number.
What type of 24/7 support can you outsource to Influx?
Depending on your business needs, there are many different customer support solutions to take into account. Influx offers a variety of solutions including:
- eCommerce support
- Technical support
- Live chat support
- Outsourced sales teams
- Enterprise call centers
At Influx, our goal is to provide businesses with world-class support outsourcing, no matter how big or small. Getting started with us is easy and quick. Learn how Support as a Service can help bolster your customer support operations.
Contact us today to see how we can help you scale your business!
