That means most people either have to spend their lunch on the phone or make extra time somewhere during the workday. It’s not always feasible to have a 24 hour call center or tech support, but one of the helpful things about outsourcing is you can work with people in time zones that cover the non-business hours in your home zone. It’s an augmentation of your customer support team to make your assistance available to as many of your customers as possible.
Customer service surveys (the ones call centers always ask you to take at the end of the call) find that more people have positive interactions when the issue is resolved talking to a live representative. It makes sense because your customers don’t need to wait for an email back. Most people don’t have email tracking software to see who has opened their email yet. And even if they do, there is a big unknown of when the issue will get resolved. Having live support as an option simply means more happy customers.
The other interesting result of customer support surveys is more customers have positive experiences when their issue is resolved the first time they call. Of course, this isn’t always possible and most people know that, but there are the few who expect things to “just work.”
Whether you have your own customer support team in-house, outsourcing, or even augmenting through customer service, having customer support available to your customers during the working hours of every time zone you sell in is a huge bonus for the reputation of your company. It means your clients get their concerns taken care of when they have time to work on it, not when it’s convenient for you.