What is 24/7 Support? Benefits, Definition, and Strategies

Any company needs to offer round-the-clock client service in today’s hyper-connected world. By providing support around the clock, your company can foster confidence and loyalty among its clientele and guarantee that any problems arising from customer service will be addressed and resolved promptly and effectively.

By reading this comprehensive guide, you will understand the advantages of 24/7 support and how it can be implemented for your company. You will also learn the most effective ways to ensure the success of your round-the-clock customer service.

When you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll have a greater understanding of giving your customers the most excellent possible service and how providing support around the clock can help your company flourish.

What is 24/7 Support?

The provision of customer service at any moment during the day or night, seven days a week, constitutes what is known as “24/7 support” when offered by a company. This indicates that clients anticipate receiving the same level of care whenever they contact your business for assistance with your item or service, regardless of what hour of day or night it is.

Any company operating in today’s hyperconnected environment needs to provide help around the clock. You need a strategy to ensure that you can give enough support to your consumers and rapidly handle any problems they may experience.

Benefits of 24/7 support

Unlike increasing throughout on a manufacturing line (which is usually quite simple), the transition to 24/7 customer support is not so straightforward: one day, the coverage could be 8, 12, or even 16 hours, and the next, it may be 24 hours.

By performing “more of the same,” the expense of your company’s support function will rise by 60%-100%. So, what’s the point?

Here are four strong reasons:

• The first benefit of providing 24/7 support is offering a more convenient service to your consumers. Offering 24-hour assistance in an always-on world guarantees that your service meets customer demand and that they can find you whenever they need you
• A 24/7 support staff is also better positioned to address support inquiries faster than a 9-to-5 team because more representatives are available to deal with your support queue. When you adopt 24/7 support, the First Response Time or Average Resolution Time will likely decrease since your support crew is available around the clock, allowing them to reply to your clients rapidly
• It also implies that you can offer and manage a global clientele. Offering 24/7 service allows your organization to expand its consumer base outside its home location. If you provide local assistance from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, foreign clients in various time zones may struggle to reach your support service and will be more likely to leave your brand
• Implementing 24/7 assistance may also compel businesses to use new technology to increase the efficiency of their support personnel. When companies first begin providing 24/7 support, they seek tools and technologies to enhance team efficiency while bringing on additional team members. This can include implementing bots, automated ticket routing, or deploying scripted email replies, which other teams can adopt within your organization as they realize its benefits to your support staff

Strategies for 24/7 Support

Use your team

Support agents are expensive to deploy. Even though your company already employs those agents.  Remember when there were only three of you, and everyone picked up the phone? The growth period of a business is the same, and while it won’t last forever, each individual has a responsibility to rise to the occasion, especially during the Christmas season.

It’s not just a last-ditch effort; there are significant benefits. Companies’ personalities alter as they grow (particularly above the 25 and 150-employee thresholds). People become segmented, concentrating solely on their disciplines.

But in today’s world, when the customer is king and the premium services of a SaaS industry allow customers to turn off their businesses with a single click, meeting expectations is everyone’s duty.

Master the playbook

Playbooks provide processes for your team to follow without compromising flexibility.   And it’s not only about cultural and linguistic differences; consider the spread of various technology. Regular internet in Korea, for instance, has a download speed of 132MB.

Only 32MB in Italy (although neither are notably exceptional), so citizens will employ the tools available to them in a variety of ways. You desire a balance of a worldwide set of processes and some adaptability for local situations for an efficient support role.

Playbooks are the answer. You will be better equipped to roll out brand-new shift patterns, including, most likely for the first moment, agents who are new to the organization and may not often cross shifts with your more experienced personnel if you use playbooks.

Provide self-service options

One of the easiest ways to expand your support service is to assist your customers in assisting themselves and each other. Knowledge and experience or FAQs page might help your support team manage fewer tickets by allowing consumers to find answers to the most frequently asked questions.

Spotify for Podcasters has a searchable support center where consumers may get answers to frequently asked concerns such as “how often is podcast data updated?” or such problems as “podcast not appearing in search.”

Alternatively, establishing a supportive community site where consumers can discuss tips and best practices and provide product feedback. A forum allows your consumers to become an extension of your support team. It also implies that you can find “power users” of your services or products suitable for customer reviews or case studies.

Focus on channels that matter

Customers have varying expectations regarding response times based on the support channel they contacted you. According to Drift’s 2018 State of Chatbots Report, more than 75% of customers anticipate a quick response if they reach you via chatbot or web chat, and less than 10% are prepared to wait more than 24 hours whether they contact a firm via phone, social networks, or online chat.

When scaling up to provide 24/7 help, don’t feel obligated to provide round-the-clock assistance across all platforms. Focus on the media where clients want to hear from you quickly so your service meets their expectations.

Conclusion

It makes sense for some businesses, like those in the financial services or healthcare industry, to provide 24/7 service around the clock.  But studies have shown that customers increasingly favor asynchronous communication with brands, just as they do with friends and family.  This means that conversations can take place in real-time if necessary.

However, the majority of the time, the consumer can focus on more important things and pick up the conversation again whenever it is convenient for them to do so. Message channels are becoming increasingly popular for businesses to give customers instant, individualized, and asynchronous communication.