24x7 After Hours Help Desk Support

After Hours Help Desk Support Meaning

After-hours help desk support is popularly known as 24x7 support, or 24x7 tech support is a customer service strategy that involves providing 24/7 support to ensure that customers can get their issue resolved no matter what day or time.

Does your business need to provide 24/7 support?

If your business is expanding or taking up larger customers, delivering 24-hour customer service is a challenge. Scaling a team to fulfill specific considerations can come with a cost. You need to choose a strategy that considers your customer needs, location or time at which load is growing up, and your business goals.

On the other hand, finding the right talent is not an easy job. 24x7 support can be a big investment for any company since you need to hire and train more support staffs which requires financial investment even before you can get the benefits of having it. Providing 24x7 support needs a bigger support team which comes with higher staffing costs.

Hence, you’ll need to outsource after-hours support to a third-party service. There are 3 reasons that 24x7 support can be the right option for your business.

1. When you are serving global clients –

If your clients are spread across different time zones, you cannot stick to providing services only between 9 to 5. If your business is expanding in multiple regions of different time zones, then you should consider round-the-clock support.

2. Depends on your industry if you need 24x7 after-hours help desk customer service support –

Industries like healthcare, travel, insurance where customers need to contact you at any point of day or time. If they don’t get proper support, then they will move to your competitors who are providing 24x7 support.

3. When most queries are received after-hours –

If you find that most of your queries are received during after-hours then that’s a clear sign that offering 24x7 support is beneficial for your customers.

There are multiple benefits of offering 24x7 after-hours help desk call center service support which can provide a more convenient service for your customers. Providing round-the-clock service means that your service meets your customers’ expectations, and they can connect with you whenever they need you.

After-hours help desk customer service team is equipped to handle support queries faster than a team that’s only available 9 to 5 since they have more staffs to support customers in queue. Adapting to 24x7 support can also push companies to adopt new technology to improve their support team’s efficiency.

How to choose a 24x7 support strategy for your business?

Understand your customer needs if you can meet the expected service levels. Find the channels where your customers prefer their support. Is there any language or cultural concerns with your support team?

Once you understand your customers’ demands and regions that need more attention, turn to the goals and expansion plans of your business. Use those plans to create a strategy for delivering 24x7 support to your customers.

24x7 After-Hours Support options

There are several ways to achieve 24x7 after-hours help desk support services as mentioned below:

1. In-house Team –

You can employ staff who work in shifts which can be costly. This approach will involve a team of 2 to 3 additional staff to ensure that you meet the customer’s demand. Ensure that night staffs are clear about the hours of work while you recruit them. Ensure that you give them enough support, training, and processes to be followed in the event of an emergency.

Make sure that your night staff has the support needed at home to work unsociable hours and sleep during the day otherwise it will be difficult to ensure that the team will keep working those hours.

2. Overseas Outsourcing –

Another option is to work with outsourcing companies, depending on the time zones of your staffs and clients. There are several companies that supply IT services that are tailored to the needs of small and medium companies.

While working with outsourced partners overseas, make sure they are already experienced in providing services to companies like yours. Although this method is more cost-effective, the downside is that the support is limited. Since your team will provide scripts and processes to follow and if anything, complex requirement is encountered then your IT team need to handle the next day.

Culture is also a consideration while outsourcing to overseas providers. There can be cultural differences between the way your users communicate, and the way overseas analysts will communicate. This can affect the way tickets are handled by analysts while not understanding how to prioritize the tickets according to your business objectives and goals.

3. Trusted After-Hours IT Support –

Instead of hiring a night shift team or overseas outsourcing, you can partner with a third-party service provider who provides 24x7 support with the advantage that they are in the best position to embed themselves in your company and understand the business model and objectives.

One of such partners is 31 West Global Services that maintains clear communication and service levels. This way you can be confident that your 24*7 support team is prepared to take care of your clients and staffs around the clock.

Conclusion

Scaling your customer service to provide support around the clock will benefit your customers in the long run, as well as your business. With a good 24x7 support model that suits your business, you can operate your customer service team 24/7/365 in no time.

Source: https://www.31west.net/services/customer-service/after-hours-call-center/