Still don’t have a customer support line open 24/7? Here’s Why You Should Get Started Right Away!
Many businesses are still hesitant to offer customer support 24/7. This is due to a variety of factors. Some businesses believe that implementing and maintaining it will be too expensive. Some businesses believe it won’t bring much value. Whatever the rationale, in the digital age, not providing 24/7 customer service is becoming increasingly untenable. With the current surge in automation and AI, implementing these technologies to support your customer service operation is also a lot cheaper and more accessible than ever.
Customer expectations and attitudes are changing. Customers want to be able to contact businesses on their own terms in the digital era, and they gravitate toward businesses that allow them to do so. They want to be able to contact businesses based on their preferred methods of communication. Email, live chat, SMS, social media, or a phone call are all examples of communication methods. It also refers to the period at which they contact the company. Customers should not have to schedule time to contact your firm during your operating hours because our modern lives are demanding and busy enough.
If a consumer is contacting customer support, it’s most likely because they’re having a problem with your product or service. This indicates that there is already some stress in the connection before they ever make contact. A well-run customer service department should seek to reduce this stress by exceeding customer expectations and resolving issues rather than creating new ones. Understanding your consumers and being available to assist them whenever they require assistance is essential to efficiently solving difficulties. By delaying this assistance, you risk further aggravating your clients and giving them a negative experience. That’s why we’re going to look at all of the reasons why you should implement 24/7 customer service in your company today. Let’s get this party started.
Reasons to Provide Customer Service 24/7
Customers expect a lot from you.
According to a 2017 study conducted by IT behemoth Microsoft, 54% of all consumers have higher customer service expectations than they did a year ago.We can only anticipate even higher customer demands in 2020. Customers will be more critical of brands that fail to satisfy their expectations and will switch to a brand that can provide them with more. Furthermore, delivering 24-hour customer service is no longer a distinguishing quality of a business; rather, it is something that customers have learned to anticipate. If you fail to deliver on something that many customers now demand as part of their customer-business contact, you will disappoint them and negatively influence their customer experience.
Your clients expect you to be reachable.
Our societies have transformed in recent decades to allow for more flexibility in the workplace. Most employees who work in offices used to be required to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and to report to the office building every day. This isn’t the world we live in anymore. People today are considerably more likely to have flexible work schedules that better facilitate work-life balance. Working from home, coffee shops, or anywhere else has become commonplace in today’s professional world. With this newfound freedom comes a new set of expectations.
Limited customer service hours no longer make sense in a world where communications have never been more flexible and where you can chat to someone on the other side of the planet instantaneously and for free. Consumers are aware that you can improve your accessibility, and they will hold it against you if you do not. Simply put, customers want businesses to be available whenever they are ready to speak with them.
Your focus should be on the customer experience.
Right now, customer experience is getting a lot of attention, and for good reason. Businesses all around the world are now focusing more on improving their customer experience rather than more traditional means of rivalry, such as price competitiveness and marketing. According to one survey, consumers will value customer experience over price by 2020. It’s too early to judge whether this prediction has come true because 2020 is just one week old. Customer experience, on the other hand, has been a goal for several years. According to a joint analysis by Econsultancy and Adobe, the most intriguing business possibility is “customer experience.” Content marketing, data-driven marketing, video marketing, and social marketing were other competitors for the most intriguing business potential. All of them were outperformed by the customer experience.
There isn’t a clear checklist of things you should offer a consumer when it comes to customer experience. You’re attempting to elicit a response from your clients, one that will make them loyal to your brand and pleased to do business with you. You must adopt a holistic approach to client experience in order to succeed. What do your consumers expect from you? How do they prefer to be contacted? Are you able to respond quickly to their questions? One method to show clients that you want to answer all of their inquiries and that you’re ready to help them if they have any problems with your product or service is to provide 24-hour customer support.
You Must Be Available Right Now.
According to one survey, 71% of consumers aged 16 to 24 believe that a timely response from a customer support team can improve their customer experience significantly. Another study found that 90 percent of customers value an “immediate” response when they have a question. For 60% of the responders, “immediate” meant 10 minutes or less. Customers expect to be able to contact you immediately and get their issues resolved. You risk boosting clients’ stress levels and growing their frustration with your firm by having them wait until the next day’s opening hours.
It enhances your credibility.
Consumers are becoming more aware of whom they choose to support with their dollars. We’ve witnessed an upsurge in customers who are concerned about a company’s social, environmental, and political policies. In reality, 64% of worldwide consumers are belief-driven shoppers, willing to boycott a brand because of their position on a particular issue. This happened in late 2019, when Blizzard penalised one of its eSports players for expressing his views on the Hong Kong conflict. Blizzard was sticking to their policy of not allowing political messages to be distributed on their platforms, but many of their western fans were upset. Former Blizzard fans took to social media to protest the company and declare that they would no longer buy Blizzard products.Some even went to Blizzard’s offices to protest. If your firm fails to meet their expectations, many customers will quickly go to another.
Trustworthiness and honesty, on the other hand, can take numerous shapes. You don’t have to shout your beliefs from the rooftops if you want to win over your target audience’s hearts and minds. You can also demonstrate your dependability in modest ways, such as by making yourself available to talk at any time. Customers are more inclined to be suspicious of your company or product if they believe contacting you will be difficult. They may prefer a company that provides 24/7 customer service and a more diverse set of communication channels over one that only provides restricted customer service.
It Exhibits a High Level of Responsiveness
Customers are concerned about a company’s responsiveness. They want to know that if they have a problem throughout the buying process or during their customer experience, they can count on you to help them. If you have live chat available on your website, you are communicating to your clients that you are a responsive firm. You’ve arrived, you’re available, and you’re prepared to respond to their inquiries. It should never be difficult for a consumer to find the information they need to get in touch with you. This is why you’ll notice that many websites have a live chat box that appears automatically when you visit them. These businesses are attempting to exhibit to potential clients a high level of responsiveness.
You Must Be Global If You Have a Global Customer Base.
Selling to a worldwide market is now easier than ever. Of course, not every company wishes to sell to a global audience, but many do. If your company is one of these, you must ensure that your clients in other regions are treated with the same respect as your local customers. This entails delivering customer assistance throughout peak times in several countries, so that your local customers aren’t the only ones who benefit from the finest of your customer service operation.
You have the ability to solve problems before they become major issues.
When you respond quickly to problems, you reduce their impact. As we’ve already mentioned, you increase the customer’s stress level by having them wait for a response. Some of these customers may take to social media to publicly criticise your business. If this happens outside of business hours, and you don’t have any dedicated support employees available outside of business hours, a post can quickly develop and be seen by a large number of people by the time you answer the next day.
It’s Now Easier Than It’s Ever Been.
It has never been easier to build a 24/7 customer support operation with the technology accessible in today’s digital landscape. You can outsource customer service to companies in different time zones, commit to offering longer hours of help on social media, or integrate chatbots into your website. Customer service that is available 24/7 does not have to mean that you have agents on the phone all the time; it simply means that your customers can contact you at any time.
Don’t put it off any longer.
There’s a lot of competition out there, which means you have to constantly think of new methods to distinguish yourself. The modern world operates 24/7, and we’ve seen an increasing number of organisations adopt a 24/7 customer support approach. This strategy is not only appropriate for today’s world, but it also helps organisations meet their current top priority: increasing customer experience. If you start implementing this technique right now, you’ll be able to differentiate yourself from your competitors who are still providing customer service within a limited time frame.
We anticipate that this trend will continue, and that even more firms will choose a customer service model that is available 24/7. If you choose to put off this procedure, you risk being left behind as clients go to organisations that match their needs better.
