The Situation: Your Small to Medium Size Business (SMB) offers customer support during regular business hours, but not during nights, weekends and holidays. You want to offer 24/7 customer support, but simply cannot justify the high cost of building out round-the-clock capabilities given the relatively low call volume you receive after-hours.
You are now left with a decision—how can my business ensure that we are aware of time- sensitive issues when they occur after-hours? While it may feel like your workdays are already very long, the reality is that business-hours-only support operations are literally closed 70% of the time to your valuable customers.
And, traditional, affordable work-arounds typically force most SMBs to summon a patchwork of on-call agents, generic answering services, FAQ’s, and positive thinking with fingers crossed just to get through the after-hours support shifts (usually with mixed results).
Every SMB business in this situation knows that not offering 24/7 customer support also means that on Monday morning, any variety of time-sensitive issues and unhappy customers could be waiting in your inbox. In such patchwork environments, it is inevitable that both important issues and your customer’s satisfaction will fall through the cracks. Not a good thing.
If this feels familiar to you, read through the following 9 things all SMB’s should know about customer after-hours service in 2021. What has changed is that there are now specialty after- hours support vendors that are truly optimized for SMB needs.
A few thoughtful steps with the right vendor will transform your business’ approach to after-hours customer support with ease, affordability and sustainable quality.
1. The right after-hours support service will suit your needs with no compromises, not the other way around.
In today’s market, there are specialty customer support services that provide after-hours coverage exclusively. When reviewing potential vendors, the service you select should be “right-sized,” meaning the level of service they provide meets both your requirements and pay- for-what-you-need budgets based on actual after-hours service volumes. It is also key that the service matches the intended professionalism of your brand
2. Providing after-hours service will generate business and protect customer loyalty
Working with a live after-hours customer service vendor is strategically advantageous for your company over patchwork solutions. The first and most important advantage of using an after- hours service is that a live agent answers the phone and has the capability of solving the problem on the spot for known tier 1 issues or immediately escalates critical issues at their flashpoint. If a customer calls and has a positive interaction with an agent, this can improve that customer’s perception of your business. Likewise, if a customer has difficulty reaching your support resources after-hours, when it is convenient for them, that translates to a negative experience with your business and can impact their future decision-making.
3. Offering after-hours support will boost efficiency for your business
Your in-house daytime staff can benefit from using an after-hours support solution as well. Instead of spending each morning playing “catch up” with issues from the night before and trying to track down users, their workflow is readily clear and actionable. Processing issues around the clock leads to graceful operations for everyone involved.
4. After-hours customer support prevents the occurrence of hang-ups
Unlike IVR recordings and mailboxes which can cause consumers to become irritated, provide incomplete information, and hang up the phone in a worse mood than when they called, a live support experience can ensure that callers get the answers they need the first time they call. Offering after-hours customer support makes proactivity part of your business model so you are faced with less upset customers and it says, “we care”.
5. Support can be tailored to changing call volumes
Another significant advantage of partnering with an after-hours support provider is that SMB’s can more cost-effectively manage peak or seasonal traffic periods without having to add additional headcount, ie> a quality after-hours support vendor should be able scale resources up or down as needed to protect service levels. If you have a higher number of calls at certain times of the year, you can opt to raise your service level and then reduce it when the call volume subsides.
6. After-hours customer support can be cost efficient
Outsourcing your after-hours support means you don’t have to pay premium employee wages, worry about staffing for sick leave and holidays, overtime logistics, facility and workstation costs and maintenance, and insurance headaches. Working with a live customer support solution for your company is both an easy and a highly cost-effective solution. Operations and associated costs are managed by the support vendor, and you simply pay for a hassle-free service that allows you to rest easier at night.
7. Removes Language Barriers
A quality after hours support vendor will also bring advanced capabilities such as bilingual language support for your non-English speaking customers. Working with a third party to achieve advanced outcomes is often cheaper, faster and better. For example, the ability to provide bilingual support ensures that your consumers receive the assistance they need, regardless of their language or market.
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This blog post was created by Ken Mcloughlin, founder of 3rdshiftdesk.com, an after-hours support specialty company. Ken brings 30+ years of direct experience leading national outsourced service desk organizations Ken can be reached for an meaningful conversation at kenmcl@3rdshiftdek.com
I liked it when you said that there are specialty customer support services that provide after-hours coverage exclusively. Our business is growing faster. We now feel the need for IT support to cater to customer relations. Thanks to this post, I now know where to find the best IT support service in town.