How to provide 24/7 customer support without increasing costs?

Customer expectations are constantly growing. The data collected by HubSpot leaves no doubt – 90% of customers say receiving an immediate response is important or very important to them. Do you know how much time you have to provide such a response? 10 minutes or even less. 

Conclusion? Providing 24-hour customer support is no longer  a matter of choice for your company.

The good news is that you can offer it without overburdening consultants and without hiring new employees. How to do it? Find out by reading the article below.

Automate customer service in your company – it’s easy!

When you analyze customer service requests in your company, you will find that most of them are recurring questions. Some will also be about trivial or even obvious issues. 

Artificial intelligence, which will be at the station 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, will be great at resolving them. The AI ​​Busters automation engine enables automatic handling of inquiries sent via e-mail, chats or forms on the website. 

The few reports that require the intervention of consultants will wait until the morning. However, they will be automatically redirected to the appropriate department or consultant with a ready response suggestion, thanks to which the service time will be maximally shortened. The customer will of course be informed immediately when he can expect his problem to be solved.

Automation is not only about automatic answers, but also:

  • Consultants support thanks to automatic, personalized answer suggestions.
  • Intelligent classification that automatically redirects messages to the most competent employees or the right departments.
  • Verification of attaching the required attachments and sending automatic requests to send missing documents. 
  • Gathering data about customers, which enables offering a higher-level service through advanced personalization.

Of course, all this results in overall increase in the efficiency of customer service, not only its 24/7 accessibility. 

Introduce self-service

Today’s customers are very eager to look for information on their own. It cannot be denied that the Internet has got us all used to it. Moreover, not everyone wants to contact the service department if they don’t have to. 

You can provide your customers with the solutions they expect, thereby offering 24/7 support. For this purpose:

  • Create a knowledge base in the form of insightful articles, but also videos or infographics.
  • Create an FAQ, i.e. a list of answers to the most frequently asked questions.

If the customer fails to find the information he/she needs, a consultant will be on standby and the virtual one will be perfect at it at non-standard hours.

Do you really need 24/7 customer support?

24/7 customer service is now a standard, especially for companies that operate on an international scale or in the industries that simply require it. However, there is no doubt that for all the other organizations, this is an opportunity to build a competitive advantage.

When and why do you need 24/7 solutions?

  • 24-hour customer support is a staple in the e-commerce industry, especially if you sell to multiple markets, to users who live in different time zones.
  • 24/7 assistance is also very important in the insurance industry. Misfortunes never happen on time – however, once they do, your customers cannot face a lack of help from your business.
  • Thanks to the solutions implemented to ensure 24-hour customer service, you will increase the efficiency of the entire customer service department and reduce the consultants turnover. You may not realize it yet, but all the solutions described above have an impact on many more factors than just service time.

Summary

24/7 customer service is a response to clients expectations, but also a big challenge for companies – at least in the initial phase. The key to success is not so much offering 24/7 service as ensuring the highest standards of offered support – regardless of the hour. 

Remember that your customers don’t even need to realize that they are interacting with automation. Thanks to modern technology it is possible.

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