Guide to Provide 24/7 Customer Service with Tips & Benefits

What is 24/7 Customer Service?

24/7 customer support is a model where customers can get their issues resolved anytime they need assistance. This is the support that is available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

When organizations are able to contact their customers whenever they need it by adopting digital channels such as self-service knowledge base and chatbots, they are providing 24-7 customer service. Customers are extremely happy when they receive aid when they demand it. This is how customers react to customer service.

Customers often resent waiting and expect rapid responses. Customers would have their difficulties addressed with proactive customer service support and consistency if a support crew was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When customers are satisfied with the level of support they receive, they are more inclined to stay loyal and less likely to switch brands.

Key Benefits of providing 24/7 Customer Service

Without a doubt about it, implementing a 24/7 customer service system is a huge financial investment, and we understand if you’re still hesitant. However, these seven 24/7 customer service benefits will convince you.

Fulfill customers’ expectations

Have you ever found yourself waiting several hours for a response from a customer service team on an urgent issue? How did that make you feel? At that moment, you were a customer in need of help, and we bet you wanted effective, easy, and quick customer service. This is a universal feeling backed up by facts. Offering 24/7 customer support helps to meet up with customer expectations of instant service, no matter the time.

Improved sales conversions

Businesses last longer when there is an impressive level of sales conversions. When you’re not having customers pay for your products or services as they should, there’s something wrong. Sometimes, it can be due to how difficult it is to reach an effective customer service team. However, 24/7 customer support can fix this. Customers will also be encouraged to spend more on premium services.

Increases client satisfaction

When customers put in a lot of extra effort when they need to reach you, this automatically translates to abysmal satisfaction levels. If you want to increase client satisfaction, building an efficient 24/7 customer support process is the way to go.

Foster consumer loyalty

One of the best ways to show your customers that you truly care is by offering 24/7 customer support. With this, they’ll be convinced that you prioritize their needs, which translates to customer loyalty. We all know that loyalty is essential for business growth as customers will be willing to stick with you long-term and even refer your brand to others.

Acquire a competitive edge

What sets you apart from every other business in your industry? It’s always best to stay ahead of your competitors so that your customers and potential clients will see a better reason to stick with your brand compared to others in the same sphere. 24/7 customer service gives you a competitive edge that has become increasingly relevant in today’s digital world.

Serve your worldwide customers

Time zone differences can be very uncomfortable. One of your customers in a different time zone may require urgent assistance, but things can get really confusing without 24/7 customer support. However, you can serve your worldwide customers with 24/7 customer service with tools like an AI chatbot that never sleeps.

Though offering 24-hour customer service may appear to be a massive effort and expense, it is a long-term investment in creating client relationships. If done correctly, it will not only provide prompt customer care, but for this, you can choose to invest in a customer support knowledge base or a self-service knowledge base. This will also enhance client retention and present your company with a competitive advantage that few brands can match.

Improves ROI

Exceptional customer service can directly translate into a higher ROI for your business. Most customers are willing to keep patronizing companies that have excellent customer service. This means that they will spend more on companies with personalized customer experience centers that provide answers to their inquiries as fast as they want them.

Automation technology is responsible for high ROI in a lot of businesses that offer 24/7 customer support.

Also Read: Internal Customer Service Best Practices

How to provide 24/7 customer service?

If you would love to provide round-the-clock assistance to your customers and enjoy the benefits we talked about earlier, you need to know the best way to do this. Here are some tips.

Knowledge base

A self-service knowledge base is one of the best ways to bring 24/7 customer service to life without burdening your team.

So, what exactly is a knowledge base? A customer support knowledge base enables your customers to self-serve solutions to frequently asked queries, lowering the high expenses associated with the additional workload for the company’s live helpdesk employees. It will help you save money and keep your hard-won consumers.

An effective knowledge base provides the exact immediate information that clients are looking for – in an organized, user-friendly format. This usually includes helpful information about your product that you know your customers would want to know more about. They could be videos, guides, FAQs, or just articles that are always available, even when your team is offline. The best knowledge bases are those that keep out technical jargon, Include a glossary of terms for unfamiliar words, and give recommendations to new customers to help them find the right content.

Find out how Document360 can help you to reduce support tickets!

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Live chat or chatbot

With live chat or chatbots, you can assist your customers in real-time and enhance their customer service experience. So, what exactly are they? A chatbot is an AI software program built to interact with website visitors just as a human would.

They can engage customers to help ascertain their needs and provide the right pointers. According to  Forrester, 65% of customer service decision-makers want to invest in chatbots to drive operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction. Chatbots can also help businesses generate leads, but the conversation flow has to be properly designed to get good results. Firstly, the greeting should be professional and include a list of functions so your customer knows what questions to ask. Bots should also be able to route conversations to human agents where necessary.

Also Read: 8 Use Cases of ChatGPT for Customer Service

Helpdesk support

Optimize your 24/7 customer support operations with an AI-powered helpdesk support system. With this, you can still cater to all customer service requests even when your team doesn’t operate 24/7. The best help desk software helps automate tickets to the relevant departments while keeping customers updated with automated notifications. Your helpdesk reports can also help you pay more attention to important metrics for your business and how to make your agents more efficient.

Outsource call center support

As a business owner, you should know when to use in-house teams and when to outsource some services. You can’t do it all. One of the best ways to enhance the customer service experience at your company is by outsourcing call center support. When searching for the right team, ensure that you look out for important skills like excellent communication, empathy, and patience, as these are necessary for positive interaction with your customers. You should also take charge of the onboarding and training processes so that each member undergoes thorough training on your products.

Check out how Document360 simplified new customer onboarding for VIEW:

Community forums

Community forums serve as 24/7 customer service centers, but the major difference is that they feature customers helping each other out rather than agents. This online discussion platform allows customers to interact freely and share unique experiences, suggestions, and tips. With this, other customers can offer real-time support through their diverse experiences and rich knowledge. However, that doesn’t mean you have to totally leave it all to customers. When a question remains unanswered for a long time, your customer support team can help, and this will be useful for thousands of customers facing similar issues.

Also Read: What Is Call Center Knowledge Base Software and Why Is It Useful?

Steps to provide 24/7 Customer service

How can you maximize customer support processes? Here are some ways:

Tailor to the genuine needs of your customers

One of the 24/7 customer service benefits you would love for your business is customer loyalty. However, this is only possible if they believe that you have their best interests at heart. Therefore, you should tailor your customer support services to the genuine needs of your customers.

Complement Self-service and real-time assistance

Empower your customers with access to real-time assistance through self-service options. One of the best options is a self-service knowledge base, which contains a huge amount of educational content that cuts across various topics related to your products and services.

Hire remote teams based on time zones

If you have customers across various time zones, it’s best to hire remote teams that can cater to the local market promptly. As effective as automated channels can be, you also need human agents that can handle issues when bots have reached their limits. Remote teams are a cost-effective solution.

Create a help guide, FAQ pages, and knowledge base to provide customers

Help guides, FAQ pages, and a robust knowledge base are part of an efficient 24/7 customer support process. Your knowledge base should contain tons of helpful topics that will help your customers access real-time information without relying on human agents.

Take advantage of omnichannel contact centers

Omnichannel contact centers help streamline business communication with real-time communication channels that are interwoven. This contact center can move from Facebook to SMS, live chats, and any other channel that picks up where the other left off. Preferred omnichannel contact centers include email, social media messengers, SMS, live chats, and web conferencing.

Outsource or collaborate with partner call centers

Outsourcing can help you focus on the more important aspects of increasing your business’s growth. Stay in contact with agencies that have a solid reputation as partner call centers.

Put into Practice and Improve Your Support Operation

Providing 24/7 customer service is a continuous process. Therefore, you should always be open to feedback from agents and customers and incorporate this into improving your support operation.

Clients reach customer support agents because they are their primary source of assistance, having an internal knowledge base enables all agents, regardless of experience, to consistently provide an excellent client experience. This also makes it easier to make updates or modifications to the support process without jeopardizing the overall client experience.

Read more:  Best Customer Service Support Tools in 2022