10 Reasons Why You Need 24/7 Support Service In 2024
In today’s competitive business landscape, the focus is on providing customer-centric solutions. Identifying your clients’ needs, putting them first, and ensuring that your goals align with their requirements are some key factors that can help establish your brand.
As your business scales, your customers will demand a 24/7 support service that provides real-time assistance when needed. Addressing customers’ concerns promptly and answering their smallest questions at the earliest can make a huge difference to your brand’s image.
That is why more and more companies are embracing after-hours call center services. They either outsource the support tasks to a professional IT help desk service provider or build an in-house team of professionals who are available round-the-clock for customer assistance. Either way, the goal is to be available for your customers whenever they need it.
What is 24/7 Support?
You may have across the term “24/7 support” on the internet. In simple words, it means equipping your team with a support department that can assist your customers any time of the day.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about the last time you got stuck with a technical issue on a website and contacted their support department. How fast did they respond to your query? Were they able to resolve your issue promptly or did they have to escalate the matter to the senior executives?
From a business perspective, 24/7 support is crucial to keep their operations running smoothly. Whether you are experiencing a system downtime or have a technical issue that’s put your entire network on halt, the first thing you’ll do is contact your IT service department and expect a quick reply.
24/7 support is imperative for the IT industry. Those providing help desk services to businesses that operate on a large scale must be available around the clock to assist the organization. Some IT service providers are equipped with state-of-the-art technology, which automatically detects the issue in your network system and resolves it before it interrupts your services.
Importance of 24/7 Service for Your Business
If your customer base is located in Germany and you operate in New York, how do you think you can manage to cater to audiences from different time zones? The answer is by implementing a 24/7 support service. Here’s how this small change in your workflow plays a pivotal role in taking your brand to new heights.
Dealing with Urgent Issues
Increased Brand Awareness
Minimize Downtime
Serving Global Audience
Increased Customer Retention
Preventive Maintenance
A Must for Remote Teams
Increased Security
Resolve Technical Issues Promptly
Get Access to Expertise
1. Dealing with Urgent Issues
Not every business has an in-house IT department to resolve technical glitches, issues related to customer orders, payment-related concerns, and other problems effectively. Even if your business does have a support department, chances are they will serve during business hours only. Certain matters require emergency support from a tech expert.
People trust third-party IT support service providers because of the reliable assistance, which is available as and when needed. You never know when your system might crash or your website will be inaccessible to your audience during peak seasons. Or, your customers might face issues with placing an order or completing their payment.
Apart from these small issues, there’s a risk of a cybersecurity threat. If your system isn’t up-to-date with the latest security protocols, such as the right firewall program or advanced antivirus software, an attacker can launch a malicious code on your system and access your confidential data. These issues require urgent support, and from a team that understands your workflow and all technical aspects of your business.
Let’s say you run a website designing company and serve a global audience. Your system is running smoothly until you notice unauthorized access to your sensitive files. You get an alert for this unauthorized access. Unfortunately, it happens during non-business hours. Now, taking prompt action in case of a security breach is crucial, as it can put your business and your customers’ data at risk.
2. Increased Brand Awareness
Many factors affect your brand reputation. How you market your services, how you approach customers, and the quality of your product are a few important things that can make or break a brand. One common factor that affects the brand reputation of just about any company (no matter the size, nature, and location) is customer support. 24/7 customer service helps you in the following areas:
Achieving customer retention
Increasing customer conversions
Improving customer loyalty
All these factors contribute to increased brand awareness and a better overall reputation. Offering 24/7 support shows your customers that you care about their experience. They can shop at your store or subscribe to your services knowing that you will have an IT professional available at their disposal whenever needed. It also assures them that they will be heard and their issues will be resolved even if they reach out to you at midnight or during off days.
3. Minimize Downtime
Earlier we mentioned how a system downtime can interrupt your business operations. Think about how it will affect your customer experience with your company. A business’ prime focus is fulfilling its customers’ demands and ensuring they leave your website or the physical store fully satisfied. That isn’t possible if your support department is unavailable at times when you need prompt help.
For instance, let’s say your POS system malfunctions during off-hours. You receive a couple of online orders, but your customers can’t complete the payment, as the payment gateway isn’t working.
If your support department doesn’t work outside business hours, you will end up losing these customers to your competitors. Imagine if this happens on a weekend and your in-house technical support team isn’t available for 2-3 days. Think about the number of customers you will lose because of a broken POS, which could have been easily fixed if you had a 24/7 support team.
A business that has outsourced an IT help desk team that offers 24/7 support and caters to such issues at all times of the day, any day, and especially during peak hours, can build customers’ trust in their brand. Not only does it build your customer loyalty, but it encourages them to promote your business with word-of-mouth referrals. Having an IT team that handles your IT tasks round-the-clock and serves your customers at any hour will imply that you prioritize their needs.
4. Serving Global Audience
24/7 support is of utmost importance for businesses that have a global clientele. If you serve customers based in different corners of the world, your in-house support department might be inadequate to offer support services at different times of the day. Handling geographical boundaries and different time zones is one of the most challenging parts of your international business.
Suppose you are an application development company, like Existek , offering software and all kinds of web development services to an international audience. You serve clients based in Europe, Australia, and other corners of the world. Due to the differences in time zones, it might be tricky to answer each customer when they need assistance. That’s where the 24/7 customer support service comes to your rescue. Not only will they reply quickly to your clients, but they will be available for their assistance outside your business hours.
Let’s say your customer based in Asia faces a technical issue on your website in the daytime. You are based in an international country where it’s nighttime and your in-house team has already left work. If you have a 24/7 IT help service department, they will take care of this international customer. You can rest assured that your outsourced support representatives will check the issue and resolve it no matter what time of the day it is.
This improves your customer satisfaction, as they can have peace of mind knowing that your business accommodates varying time zones. It also shows your commitment to serving the global audience with prompt service and professional assistance.
5. Increased Customer Retention
Acquiring a new customer is comparatively more challenging than retaining the existing ones. If you manage to build customers’ trust in your brand, they will want to visit your website/store regularly. That’s how companies build a loyal customer base. One way to achieve that is by offering round-the-clock support.
Did you know that 77% of business professionals believe that personalized customer support experiences can boost customer retention? These customers tend to buy from your business repeatedly if their calls are answered promptly or their matters are resolved at the earliest.
Increasing your customer retention rate is an important step toward growing your revenue and business over time. And the best way to achieve that is by including a 24/7 support service in your offer.
A common reason why your customers might not trust your brand is the slow response. They want their questions answered within seconds. While the 24-hour response time might work for some, it doesn’t usually offer the best customer experience. If you truly want to be recognized as a customer-oriented business, it’s important to incorporate round-the-clock support service into your offerings.
6. Preventive Maintenance
Outsourcing your IT services to a professional technician who offers proactive support service round the clock can help you prevent major technical issues. Minor issues that your in-house support might neglect can turn into a system-wide problem that can affect your business operations.
For instance, if a customer is unable to access your website, there’s a chance it might be because of a system error. It’s important to look into the matter before your website crashes and you lose all the crucial data.
Having an IT team that guarantees 24/7 support will help you implement preventive maintenance. They will monitor your system, watch out for potential issues, upgrade the necessary software, and fix small matters before these little issues turn into major problems.
In addition to reducing the risk of downtime, a proactive support team helps you prevent costly issues. Here’s how an IT support team can improve your business’ productivity, employee and customer experience, and overall business operation with their 24/7 customer support service:
Address IT issues in real time, maximizing your business’ productivity and preventing downtime.
Boost employee’s productivity and performance
Maintaining your technical resources
Improve your customer experience and satisfaction rate
Prevent system failures, technical errors, and data loss
Save you the cost associated with emergency IT maintenance
Align your IT resources with your long-term business goals
The right IT support department won’t just offer 24/7 support, but use regular monitoring and preventive maintenance to keep your business running smoothly.
7. A Must for Remote Teams
If you operate remotely or have a team of freelancers and full-time remote employees working from different parts of the world, you need a professional IT support service department that offers round-the-clock assistance. Most businesses have embraced the remote transition and for good reasons. It allows them to expand their setup to international boundaries.
While that’s a great step to growing your business, the differences in the time zones can make work difficult. Your sales team based in New York might have different working hours than the development team based in Asia. A professional IT help desk provider that offers 24/7 support service can be a game-changer here.
They can bridge the gap between different time zones and ensure that each employee (no matter where they are based and what time it is in their area) gets professional help when needed. This ensures that your business operations do not stop because of a simple issue that couldn’t be resolved because of the time differences and unavailability of your in-house support team.
8. Increased Security
The cases of cybercrimes have been growing rapidly. These criminals target nearly all types of organizations, be it small-scale firms or large enterprises. One of the reasons is the outdated system.
As new updates are launched, it’s important that you install and configure them into your existing solution to ensure that your system stays secure. A part of the 24/7 emergency IT support provider’s job is to check your system for security-related concerns and update outdated apps when needed.
Waiting for your system to crash or for an attacker to launch a virus on your software is a big and costly mistake. You’ll probably end up shelling out too much on a security breach that could have been easily prevented.
Having a customer support team that doesn’t just address your customer’s queries and concerns, but keeps a close eye on your system can help detect and prevent security threats before they cost you your business. Most 24/7 support providers offer proactive support, i.e. they scan your system for security updates and recent activities to detect unauthorized access before it becomes a major issue.
9. Resolve Technical Issues Promptly
Working with a 24/7 customer service department gives you peace of mind, as they are there to handle all kinds of technical and non-technical issues promptly. Their main job is to ensure that your system’s performance isn’t affected by an unexpected downtime, a security breach, or a technical glitch.
Here’s what these companies help you with:
Identifying and resolving hardware malfunctioning
Addressing software-related concerns, like troubleshooting technical bugs in software, updating it, guiding you on how to configure it, and checking its compatibility with your existing software applications.
Addressing network connectivity issue
Identifying, reporting, and resolving security threats
Creating data backup and helping with data restoration
Optimizing the system’s performance
Most emergency IT service providers set up a remote connection with your workstation to get quick access to your system and resolve technical issues from any place. They offer a high-resolution rate and an excellent response rate.
10. Get Access to Expertise
Remember, establishing a good relationship with your clients requires a dedicated support team, which isn’t just available when your customer is having trouble placing an order or making a payment, but serves them in the future too.
IT professionals hire specialists who are well-familiar with most technical domains and can assist your employees and your customers with small-to-complex technical glitches. They don’t just give you a quick response or direct your customers to the knowledge base, but these professionals take the matter into their own hands and fix it.
Whether you want to order hardware equipment or need a quick fix for a technical bug that’s crashed your system or is causing unnecessary interruption, the 24/7 customer support team will come to your rescue. As mentioned before, there’s no waiting time or delays in response. They will answer you promptly, understand the problem, and suggest the best fix.
Conclusion
Gone are the days when customers were fine with waiting until it’s morning or the holiday is over to reach out to the support department. In today’s fast-paced world, customers prefer working with companies that offer uninterrupted, fast, and robust support service, regardless of the hour they contact you. In fact, how fast your support team responds has become a crucial factor in determining your professionalism and reliability. Your business needs a 24/7 customer support department that can serve your clients on any day and at any hour.
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