Yes. Providing 24/7 customer support is helpful for any business. This type of service reduces the waiting period for customers and increases the satisfaction rate for getting instant support. According to research, 83% of customers say they stay loyal to the brands that respond to and resolve their complaints. So, being consistent in customer support is a must.
But with this, there are a lot of questions still appear. These questions are about cost effectiveness, how to implement it efficiently, how to overcome the technological barriers, etc. In this blog, we will explore more on it and how you can do it for your business.
What Is 24/7 Care and Why Does It Matter?
24/7 customer care means that it provides 24-hour service, 7 days a week. That means customers can get any help they need anytime they want. Businesses might need customer service for this continuous time to increase the customer satisfaction rate and provide better service. This strategy involves around-the-clock coverage for 365 days. Even though this is humanly difficult, businesses adopt different strategies to maintain it.
24/7 customer care matters most for multiple reasons. It helps to cover up different time zones from different countries around the world. It also helps to increase customer satisfaction anytime. With the sense of being available always, whenever the customer wants, create an immediate positive reaction towards the product or service.
This 365 days around the clock service brings a lot of benefits. But how to make it possible for any business? We will know more about it later.
Benefits of 24/7 Customer Service
24/7 customer service comes with a lot of benefits. All of them bring a positive impact both in business and in customers’ minds. Let us know more about these benefits in detail.
Global Timezone Coverage
If your business has a global target audience, then 24/7 customer support is a must. Not all countries follow the same time zone. When there is morning with sunshine in one part of the world, the other part is sleeping peacefully in a starry night. This creates a drawback for many brands, as it is difficult and humanly impossible to work for all parts of the world. Here, implementing a 24/7 customer service strategy helps.
This strategy can be implemented in many ways. It can be through hiring customer service representatives from multiple countries or outsourcing them, or simply implementing an AI chatbot. For instance, you have a global business, where some of your customers are from the United States, and some of them are from India. When it is midnight in the US, it is noon in India.
Now, for your Indian customers, you can hire customer service representatives from the Asian region, who can be active at that time and ready to answer queries from the specific region. Again, in the morning, the US customer service representatives will be active online to answer queries from the other regions. That is how you can maintain different time zones and serve customers worldwide.
Improve Customer Retention
Retaining existing customers is important. Because these customers become your loyal customers and suggest your product or service to others, if the customer service is unavailable during a crucial moment, then customers will not continue with the product or service, since nobody likes a long waiting period.
Imagine a case where you have a healthcare service. Now, if you are not available at midnight, then for any emergency health issues, your customers will not get your help. In this life and death situation, higher chance that customers will not get back to your service or even recommend anyone about it. So, to improve customer retention, this around-the-clock customer service is important and beneficial for your business.
Increase Brand Reputation
Your brand reputation proves how much your potential customers will trust your service. A positive reputation helps a brand to grow and make a profit in business. Here, 24/7 service can make a huge impact. A customer will be happier about a brand when they see that there is someone always available to solve their queries at any time. It leaves a positive impression among them and inspires others to try out the product or service.
Let us say you have a small business and you want to launch a new campaign in the holiday season. Now, during the launch, your website crashes due to a malfunction in a plugin provided by your SaaS hosting platform. With 24/7 customer support, the issue is resolved immediately, allowing you to proceed with your campaign as planned.
Customer Experience Improvement
When a customer gets an instant response or help from a brand’s customer service, it also automatically improves the overall customer experience. A satisfactory experience can lead to positive reviews and an increased customer base for a brand.
For instance, a customer has booked a flight from a travel website and, before 12 hours of the flight, noticed that the passport expiration date was entered incorrectly. In this case, if the customer contacts the travel agency and receives an immediate response to reissue the ticket with updated information, it improves the customer experience without any hassle.
Increase Satisfaction Rate
Customer satisfaction rate proves that you are fulfilling the customers’ needs and understanding what customers value. One of the key strategies to increase this satisfaction rate is solving customers’ problems anytime from anywhere. There is no better way than providing 24/7 customer service.
Let us say, a subscription-based streaming service, receiving frequent complaints on login issues at night. If the streaming service does not provide round-the-clock support, then customers have to wait till the next day to solve the issues. That might even leave a lot of customers unsatisfied. But with 24/7 customer support, they get an immediate solution to this, and leave a satisfied impression among users, which ultimately benefits the overall business.
Different Types of 24/7 Customer Service
As 24/7 brings a lot of benefits to a business, there is still a big question mark. Is it possible for a human to provide 24/7 service to every customer? The answer is ‘No.’ While this is impossible, this is also unethical to keep someone available for this longer period. So, what is the solution?
With modern technological advancements, it is not difficult right now to provide uninterrupted service. There are different types or methods that can be implemented in a business that help to provide the services. Here, some of them are discussed below.
LIVE Chat Support
While calling and talking with agents can be difficult and take a longer period, it is easier to communicate with the LIVE chat support. LIVE chat support does not always require a high-quality device. Support representatives can even sometimes solve queries from their mobile and provide top service. The benefit here is that no matter where the representative is, with a simple, regularly used device, they can solve queries anytime they want.
For example, an eCommerce platform received a complaint about a delivery issue. Now, if the customer seeks help on the platform, and the representative gets the complaint text in Messenger, then they can easily contact with delivery person and solve the problem.
AI Chatbot
The advanced version of LIVE chat support is an AI chatbot. While LIVE chat helps a human to provide support anytime from anywhere, an AI chatbot helps to automate this response. With the previous customer data and common queries, businesses can implement AI technology to solve customers’ problems within minutes. The core benefit here is that you can provide this service for a longer period and as much as you want.
For example, BetterDocs’ AI chatbot addon helps to automate common customer queries easily. Based on the knowledge base and documentation, the chatbot instantly replies to the customers, finding the solution. Here, you do not need a human representative to find solutions from different documentation. Chatbot can do it faster and increase the speed of response time.
Knowledge Base
Another easy way to provide 24/7 support is to create a knowledge base of your product or service. A knowledge base is a hub of documentation where you can keep how to get started with a product, and to step-by-step process of using it. You can also keep an FAQ section with the answers to common questions from customers.
Like with the BetterDocs WordPress plugin, you can create internal or multiple knowledge bases. If you have different types of products, then with multiple knowledge bases, you can keep all the documentation there. This not only helps customers but also helps the representatives to find any solution instantly and solves customer problems with zero waiting period.
Social Media Support
The social media audience is increasing day by day globally. Young people now prefer being active on social media platforms and solving their problems rather than going to a website. Providing this support can lead to exploring the variation of the target audience.
On various platforms, there are now multiple options available to get help with the brand or service. Facebook provides a messenger bot service where users can chat with a support representative or a chatbot for their queries. On Instagram, you will find a business chat about your product. All these options are cost-effective and efficient for providing constant support.
Which Businesses Need 24/7 Customer Service?
Providing all-day customer support can be costly. Especially for small business owners who have just started their business, or businesses that still have a smaller customer base. Because usually in this type of business, there are not many customer queries to provide these day-long services.
However, there are some businesses for which providing this service is a must. Here are some of these businesses:
👉 Global Brands: Specific product brands that have businesses all over the world might need a 24/7 customer service. Because these brands work in different countries in different time zones. To match the timezone of each country, it is important for them to create a strategy that covers the majority of the countries through outsourced representatives or modern technology.
👉 Tech & SaaS Company: The majority of the tech products or software can be used from any part of the world. So, these types of products can also be considered as global brands. Customers from any part of the world can use these products. Plus, for technical barriers or different bugs, it is very common that customers face continuous issues in different tools. To solve these issues, instantly providing 24/7 service leaves a positive impact and reduces the waiting period for customers.
👉 Healthcare & Emergency Services: One of the most sensitive businesses is healthcare and emergency services. For this type of business, it is a must to have continuous customer support. Health issues can arise anytime, even at midnight when there is no possibility of getting help. So, healthcare and emergency services have to be active continuously for any type of emergency at any time.
👉 Legal Firms: Like healthcare services, legal matters can be sensitive too. For any legal emergencies, such as arrests, domestic disputes, getting an instant solution can save you from a lot of hassle. Legal guidance can be technical and difficult to understand for common people. So, providing continuous support in this area is a helpful solution.
Common Challenges of 24/7 Customer Service [With Solution]
Though providing customer service 24/7 is crucial for many businesses, businesses can still encounter some common challenges while implementing the strategy. Here are the common challenges with their possible solutions,
Operational Costs
Providing 24/7 customer service can be costly sometimes. With a large number of representatives and giving them a salary for extra hours can cost a fortune for some businesses. As competition increases, the cost of tools—like chatbots and similar services—is also rising, making implementation more expensive over time. Many business owners, especially those who have a small business, can face difficulties in implementing the strategy.
💡 Solution: Businesses first need to get started with the most cost-effective solution, such as Social Media Platforms, where customers’ messaging has no limits and can answer the query instantly. For common queries, business owners can prepare documentation so that they can provide it to the customers anytime without any human or chatbot dependencies.
Quality Maintenance
Consistently providing the same service or answer to the same queries can be frustrating. There is a possibility that the quality of providing services can fall drastically. Not all humans will always respond in the same way, since this might be frustrating for many to work for longer hours. It might result in customer dissatisfaction and a negative impression of the brand.
💡 Solution: Giving customer support on a rotation basis can help here. Also, implementing and training an AI chatbot to maintain a consistent tone can be a great solution to ensure proper quality.
Technological Constraints
The most effective strategy to implement a 24/7 service is to use technology. But in many countries, there are some technological constraints. Sometimes, for some regions, this is not an affordable solution. There is a higher possibility that many business owners do not understand how to integrate an AI chatbot with their website since they do not have much technological knowledge or experience.
💡 Solution: To solve this problem, it is always better to use an affordable solution and implement technology that has less complexity. Plugins like BetterDocs are available for any region of any part of the world and the easiest solution for users to implement a knowledge base or AI chatbots. With more flexibility, these plugins can be a helpful solution and remove the barrier of technological complexity.
Turn Availability into Loyalty with 24/7 Support
Your customer does not like a longer waiting period for a simple query. Getting a faster response and solution proves how much you value their time. With 24/7 support, this is possible to reduce the waiting period and leave a satisfied customer. Today, in this modern technological era, it is no longer impossible. Even though there are always some challenges, making some smart moves can overcome these and bring an effective and profitable solution for the business. So, do not hesitate to implement the round-the-clock solution for your business.
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