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24/7 customer service sounds great, until you’re expected to provide it.
Imagine that your customer service team’s just wrapped for the day, Slack is on Do Not Disturb, and you’re finally settling in for dinner, when your phone lights up with a message:
“URGENT: Client login error impacting 100+ users. Please respond ASAP.”
Except there’s no one around to respond. Not until tomorrow.
By the time your team picks it up the next morning, the client’s frustrated, your support inbox is on fire, and that little “We’re not available right now” autoresponder has started to feel like a liability.
Customers today expect help when they need it, regardless of the time of the day or week. A recent study found that nearly half of consumers now expect businesses to offer support 24/7.
So, how do you meet this expectation without burning out your team or adding night shifts you can’t afford?
In this guide, we’ll break down what makes 24/7 customer support a competitive advantage. You’ll learn:
- What 24/7 customer service really means today
- Tangible benefits of offering 24/7 customer support
- Realistic ways to deliver round-the-clock support
- A step-by-step rollout plan you can actually follow
- A behind-the-scenes look at how Hiver’s support team provides stellar 24/7 service
Let’s get into it.
Table of Contents
- What is 24/7 Customer Service?
- The Benefits of Offering 24/7 Support
- 4 Proven Channels to Offer 24/7 Support
- A Step‑by‑Step Guide to Implement 24/7 Customer Service
- 3. Build Your Content Base and Bot Scripts
- 4. Train Your Staff and Define SLA Targets
- 5. Monitor KPIs and Continuously Improve
What is 24/7 Customer Service?
24/7 customer service refers to support that’s available to customers at any time of the day or night, all year round (including weekends and holidays). It sends a clear message that you value your customers’ needs whenever they arise, building trust that you’ve got their back day or night.
Effective 24/7 customer service entails:
- Instant support when customers need it most – whether it’s 2 a.m. or during peak hours.
- Multiple support channels, such as email, chat, and social media, so customers can reach you how they prefer.
- Seamless handoffs between shifts or agents, so no conversation feels disconnected.
- Consistency in response quality, regardless of the hour or channel.
For example, if a customer in Australia faces an issue during their business hours, your team, whether global or remote, should be ready to help.
The Benefits of Offering 24/7 Support
Implementing 24/7 support can feel like a significant investment, but the payoff in customer satisfaction and revenue is substantial. Let’s break down some of the key benefits, backed by data:
Higher Conversions and Sales
Being available around the clock means you can capture opportunities that would otherwise be missed. Have a late-night website visitor with a pre-purchase question? A 24/7 live chat can convert them then and there instead of leaving them hanging and, eventually, losing them.
Studies show that offering 24/7 live chat support results in a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% boost in conversion rates. It makes sense – shoppers are far more likely to hit “Buy now” when their last-minute concerns (stock availability, return policy, etc.) are answered at 11:00 PM on a Sunday.
Improved Customer Retention and Loyalty
If someone knows they’ll get help no matter when they call or message your business, they feel comfortable sticking with you for the long haul. And data backs this up. According to a report by Vonage, 55% of consumers said they would tell friends and family about an excellent customer service experience, and 52% reported improved loyalty to the brand after such an encounter.
In short, always-available, helpful support experiences breed loyalty. Customers who know you have their back at any hour are more likely to recommend you to others and give you repeat business.
Better Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Brand Perception
Delivering 24/7 support can elevate how customers perceive your brand. They see you as reliable, customer-centric, and truly “there for them.”
At Hiver, we’ve seen that firsthand. Our customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) consistently stay above 90%, thanks to our dedicated, around-the-clock customer support team. What’s more, our customer sentiment analysis shows that:
- 88% of customers praise our prompt assistance
- 90% highlight our professionalism and helpfulness
Feedback on Hiver’s 24/7 support from customers
People feel safer doing business with a company that won’t leave them high and dry. Offering 24/7 support greatly enhances your brand’s reputation for service excellence.
Increased Customer Base and Global Reach:
If you’ve only operated 9-5 in one time zone, switching to 24/7 opens your doors to customers worldwide. You can engage international customers during their daytime, capture queries from different continents, and generally cast a much wider net.
4 Proven Channels to Offer 24/7 Support
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to providing 24/7 service, and the good news is you don’t necessarily need an army of staff working graveyard shifts. Many companies achieve always-on support by cleverly combining tools, self-service options, and outsourcing.
Below are four proven methods (often used in combination) to deliver support around the clock:
1. Providing Customers Access to a Self-Service Knowledge Base
A self-service knowledge base is an online library of help articles, FAQs, how-to guides, and troubleshooting tips that customers can access anytime. Instead of contacting a support rep, users can search the knowledge base to find solutions independently.
A well-designed knowledge base often includes categorized topics, a search bar, and even embedded videos or screenshots to help customers resolve issues on their own. This enables 24/7 support in a scalable way. Your knowledge base never “closes,” and one article can potentially help thousands of users.
Popular knowledge base platforms include Hiver’s KB, Document360, and ProProfs Knowledge Base.
📖What to Include in a High-Impact Knowledge Base
A comprehensive knowledge base is a true self-service hub that mirrors how your customers think and what they need help with most.
Here’s what to include in yours:
- Searchable titles: Use plain language. Write article titles the way a user might type a question (“How do I reset my password?”).
- Top 10-20 FAQs: Start with the most common questions your support team handles daily.
- Step-by-step guides: Break down workflows clearly. Use bullets, numbered steps, and bolded actions.
- Troubleshooting articles: Cover known bugs, product quirks, or common errors, especially those that happen outside support hours.
- Getting started content: Onboarding guides for new customers or users can alone cut a chunk of early-stage support.
- Short videos or annotated screenshots: Show, don’t just tell. Visuals help users follow along more easily.
- Linked articles: Suggest related reads at the bottom of each post to keep users exploring.
Recommended reading
Need inspiration for building your KB?
Check out this knowledge base by Gratitude, powered by Hiver. It’s clean, minimalist, and focused on the customer experience. Articles are organized into intuitive categories like “Account Settings,” “Journaling,” and “Backup Issues.” There’s a dynamic search bar right up front, helpful visuals in each article, and in-article links that make navigation effortless.
It’s an excellent benchmark for what an effective self-service experience should look like: simple, fast, and genuinely helpful.
2. Utilizing Chatbots and AI Assistants
AI-powered chatbots are one of the fastest ways to deliver instant, 24/7 support across multiple support channels like your website chat, in-app messaging, or even Facebook Messenger. These bots can answer FAQs, walk users through basic troubleshooting and handle simple tasks like checking order status or resetting passwords.
Unlike static FAQs, chatbots engage users in real-time conversation. A customer might say, “I need help with X,” and the bot replies with relevant information or follow-up questions.
Modern AI assistants (often powered by machine learning or natural language processing) can also understand phrasing variations and cover a wide range of common queries. The more interactions they handle, the better they get at resolving a wider range of issues without human help.
⚙️ What Makes a “Good” Chatbot?
- Most people have a frustrating chatbot story to tell. Here’s what you need to keep in mind while implementing one that actually works.
- Learn from every interaction: Track failed queries, escalation rates, and customer ratings. Use that data to refine its performance.
- Offer a clear escalation path: Always offer a visible option to speak with a human, ideally within the first two interactions.
- Maintain a conversational tone: Write responses that feel natural and helpful, not robotic or scripted.
- Understand intent and varied phrasing: Use AI that can understand varied phrasing, not just exact matches (e.g., “My order is late” vs “Where’s my delivery?”).
- Integrate with your knowledge base: Let the bot pull live info from your help center to answer accurately and consistently.
- Automate simple actions: Go beyond FAQs and connect the bot to backend systems so it can trigger actions like returns, password resets, or subscription updates.
Here’s a real-life chatbot success story
South Korean car maker, Kia, launched a chatbot named “Kian” on their Facebook Messenger. The bot handled thousands of customer queries and helped boost conversion rates on their website by 21%. It worked so well because it was thoughtfully designed, trained on real customer data, integrated with backend systems, and built with a clear handoff to live agents when needed.
Recommended reading
3. Opting For Outsourced Live Chat or Call Agents
Another strategy to achieve 24/7 coverage is outsourcing your customer support (fully or partially) to an external service provider. These are often Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms or specialized live chat/call center services that supply trained agents to work on your behalf.
You can contract with such a provider to handle customer inquiries after hours, on weekends, or even 24/7. For example, you might keep your in-house team for 9-5 support, and then have an outsourced team take over during the nights and off-hours.
Popular vendors like HelpSquad, LiveAdmins, and TaskUs offer fast onboarding and can start handling your customer support operations in days.
🤝 Outsourcing vs. Hiring: A Quick Comparison
Are you deciding between outsourcing and hiring in-house for 24/7 support? Your choice depends on your business priorities: cost, control, flexibility, and scale.
Here’s a breakdown to help guide that decision:
| Factor | Outsourcing | In-House Hiring |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | ✅ Lower upfront and ongoing costs. No need for salaries, benefits, or infrastructure. | ❌ Higher costs. Includes salaries, benefits, equipment, and thorough training. |
| Speed to launch | ✅ Fast setup. Some vendors can go live in days. | ❌ Slower. Recruiting and onboarding take time. |
| Control over service quality | ❌ Lower. Agents aren’t embedded in your culture. Needs strong training & QA. | ✅ Full control. You train and manage every agent. |
| Scalability | ✅ Easy to scale up or down as demand shifts. | ❌ Rigid. You’ll need to hire or lay off based on volume. |
| Coverage flexibility | ✅ Round-the-clock, global support from day one. | ❌ Limited unless you build shifts across time zones. |
| Brand alignment | ❌ Risk of off-brand responses if agents aren’t well-trained. | ✅ Direct alignment with your tone and culture. |
| Expertise access | ✅ Many BPOs bring deep customer support experience and multilingual capabilities | ✅ You can build specialized expertise over time. |
Recommended reading
Complete Guide to Call Center Customer Service Training in 2025
4. Building Thriving Community Forums
Community forums enable your users to support each other around the clock. Over time, these Q&A threads build into an extensive, searchable archive, functioning like a living peer-to-peer support hub.
Your community may span time zones, so someone is usually online to help. And even when no one is, the content remains available 24/7.
Platforms like Discourse and Vanilla Forums let customers ask questions, and fellow users or community managers respond.
🛠 How to Kickstart a Thriving Community
- To build a successful customer forum, you must guide the early momentum. Here’s a proven playbook to get your community buzzing:
- Start small and focused: Rather than launching dozens of categories, begin with 3-5 focused ones that map to your main product areas.
- Invite your power users early: Reach out to your most active or helpful customers (those who’ve submitted thoughtful feedback, written reviews, or engaged on social media). Give them early access and ask them to seed content.
- Seed your top 10 questions: Before opening the forum to the public, post the most common FAQs and have internal experts answer them. This sets a high-quality baseline and shows new users what “good” looks like.
- Use real names and faces: If your support or product team is involved (they should be!), encourage them to reply under their own names, not just “Admin.” It humanizes the forum and encourages friendly participation.
- Promote the community in your existing communication channels: Add a CTA to your help center, live chat widget, ticket signatures, onboarding flows, and email footers, such as “Have a question? Check our community for quick answers.”
- Gamify contributions: Reward helpful members with badges, points, or titles like “Top Helper” or “Product Expert.” Recognition can be more motivating than rewards, and you can always throw in swag for top contributors.
Want proof that community-led support actually works?
Check out Salesforce’s Trailblazer Community, the gold standard for peer-driven support. It comprises 11 K+ members who post questions, swap advice, and celebrate wins. The community is segmented into clear groups (by region, product, or role), making it easy to find your tribe. Top contributors are spotlighted, and Salesforce team members engage directly, keeping discussions focused and trusted.
A Step‑by‑Step Guide to Implement 24/7 Customer Service
Offering 24/7 support might seem daunting, but you can approach it systematically. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you sustainably implement round‑the‑clock service:
1. Assess Customer Demand and Preferred Channels
Before offering 24/7 support, you need to assess whether your customers actually need help around the clock.
Here’s how to find out:
- Check your support data: Are support tickets spiking after hours? Are chats being initiated at 2 AM but going unanswered till morning?
- Identify your top channels: Is it mostly email and chat? Or do customers prefer phone or social media? For example, if you’re an e-commerce site, live chat and email might be the priority for 24/7 coverage, whereas phone support could perhaps be limited to traditional business hours if most customers are fine with chat.
- Ask your users: A quick survey can reveal whether 24/7 help is expected. If you’re global or in a time-sensitive space (like travel, IT, or finance), chances are the answer is yes.
2. Set Up the Right Tools and Platforms
Once you’ve mapped the need, it’s time to build the engine. Your tools will make or break your 24/7 support.
Here’s what to line up:
🧰 Core Systems
- Omnichannel helpdesk: A platform like Hiver lets your team manage emails, chats, and other channels from a unified dashboard. Agents can jump in from anywhere, anytime.
- Mobile access: Ensure your help desk has mobile apps or responsive web access, critical for on-call coverage or remote teams.
- Live chat: Add live chat to your website, with push notifications for night-shift agents.
- Chatbots: Use one that connects seamlessly with your helpdesk and knowledge base, so it can serve up instant answers from your FAQs and smoothly hand things off to human agents when needed. Even better if it’s built into your helpdesk, so there’s no jumping between tools.
- Self-service options: Give customers 24/7 access to help through a knowledge base, community forum, or even a training hub so they can self-serve without raising a ticket.
☎ Phone Support (If Needed)
- Use a cloud-based phone system that can route calls to your night shift or outsourced team, based on rules like time, priority, or region.
🔔 Internal Ops and Alerts
- Set up alerts for high-priority tickets via Slack or PagerDuty.
- Use analytics dashboards to monitor key metrics like Ticket volume by time of day, First response times and SLA compliance
3. Build Your Content Base and Bot Scripts
Before going live with 24/7 support, prep the resources that will keep both customers and agents self-sufficient, especially during odd hours.
🧠 Strengthen Your Knowledge Base
- Expand your help articles to cover common off-hour issues like “resetting login credentials,” “system maintenance,” or “order delays.”
- Prioritize clear, step-by-step solutions that work well on mobile.
🤖 Script and Test Your Chatbot
- Identify the top 10-20 FAQs your bot should handle, such as “Where’s my order?” and “How do I reset my password?”
- Write multiple variations of each question to account for different phrasings.
- Test thoroughly. Simulate 3 AM interactions to ensure your bot handles them smoothly.
- Script fallback logic for when the bot gets stuck (e.g., take a message, escalate, or provide next steps).
📘 Build Internal Playbooks
- Document emergency protocols: who to call, how to escalate, what to prioritize.
- Keep runbooks updated and easily accessible. Your overnight agents (or outsourced team) will rely on these in crunch moments.
4. Train Your Staff and Define SLA Targets
24/7 support isn’t just a tech rollout; it’s a people strategy. Whether you’re hiring a night shift, outsourcing, or rotating current staff, the quality of support will depend on how well your team is prepared.
🧑🏫 Train for Consistency (Not Just Coverage)
- Onboard everyone: Make sure your new hires, outsourced agents, night shift team is onboarded on your products, policies, tone of voice, and escalation workflows.
- Run joint training with your day team to pass on real-world tips and product know-how that don’t make it into docs.
- Make sure agents know how to: Use your helpdesk and chatbot tools (from Step 2) and access and contribute to your internal knowledge base (from Step 3)
⏱ Define and Communicate SLAs
Setting clarity about expectations keeps support quality high. Set SLAs like:
| Channel type | SLA |
|---|---|
| Live chat | 60 seconds |
| Critical emails | Within 1 hour |
| High-priority issues | Resolved within 24 hours |
Clearly define what’s critical (e.g., a major outage that wakes up an engineer) vs. what’s normal (e.g., a general inquiry that can wait until morning).
Recommended reading
How to Leverage SLAs in Ticketing Software to Improve Your Customer Service
🔁 Smooth the Shift Handoffs
- Create a handoff log where outgoing agents leave notes on unresolved tickets or follow-ups.
- Schedule a short overlap window between shifts if possible, even if it’s just 15 minutes.
❤️ Coach for Empathy at Odd Hours
Great service at 3 AM matters just as much as it does at 3 PM.
- Remind teams that tone, empathy, and helpfulness are key, especially when customers are frustrated or tired.
- Celebrate wins and share positive feedback to keep morale up.
Pro Tip: Use your help desk’s internal notes feature to leave quick context for the next shift, so handoffs are seamless and customers don’t have to repeat themselves.
5. Monitor KPIs and Continuously Improve
Going live with 24/7 support is just the beginning. To make it truly work for your team and your customers, you’ll need to stay data-driven and open to constant tweaks.
📊 Track the Right Metrics
Use your helpdesk analytics to monitor:
- Response times (broken down by time of day)
- Resolution times and SLA compliance
- Ticket volume by shift or day
- CSAT or customer feedback on after-hours interactions
- Agent metrics like average handle time or first-contact resolution
If you’re missing that mark at night, consider adjusting staffing or improving automation coverage.
Recommended reading
18 Customer Service Metrics That Actually Improve Support (Not Just Track It)
🎧 Audit Support Quality
- Regularly review chat transcripts and call recordings from different shifts.
- Watch for inconsistent answers, repeated questions (indicating gaps in your knowledge base) and friction in chatbot flows or escalation handoffs
🧠 Tap Into Agent and Customer Feedback
- Ask agents: What issues keep recurring? What’s missing from the internal KB?
- Ask customers: Use simple surveys after chats or emails: “Did we solve your issue?” is often enough to surface weak spots.
🔁 Adjust, Improve, Repeat
- See a spike in 3 AM password resets? Add or enhance self-service for that.
- Emails piling up on weekends? Consider adding weekend phone or chat support.
- Self-service deflecting more queries than expected? You might reduce overnight staffing without compromising experience.
- Schedule monthly performance reviews to: spot trends, adjust staffing or schedules and update your KB and bot flows
By following these steps, you can roll out 24/7 customer service in a structured way, rather than leaping in blind. Soon, you’ll have a smooth-running support operation that never sleeps – much to the delight of your customers.
Behind the Scenes: How Hiver Delivers 24/7 Support (Without Burning Out the Team)
At Hiver, 24/7 support is a real, day-in-day-out commitment, across every plan, every customer, and every timezone.
To understand how we make that happen, I spoke with Akshay Adheesh, our Support Manager, and Harsha G, Escalation Manager and one of our longest-serving team members. Their perspectives reveal what it truly takes to deliver human-first, round-the-clock support and do it sustainably.
How the Team Is Structured for “Always On” Coverage
Our support function is structured for 24/7 x 365 coverage: no outsourcing, no bots, no cutoffs.
We’re a 12-member global team led by Shankar (Head of Support). Akshay oversees operations, and Harsha handles high-priority escalations. Our frontline support crew includes 9 stellar agents working in coordinated shifts that start at 6 AM, 9 AM, 3 PM, 6 PM, and 9 PM and continue until the next morning. This staggered model ensures zero downtime between handoffs.
“When I log off after my morning shift, the night team logs in. It’s seamless. No customer is ever left waiting.” – Harsha
Weekends? Fully covered as well. While support volumes may dip, we maintain two-person shifts to ensure complete responsiveness: one from 6 AM to 6 PM and one from 6 PM to 6 AM.
The Support Channels We Cover
Hiver offers live, human support across multiple channels, such as email, live chat, customer calls (via Google Meet), and Slack — both for internal escalations (Sales and Customer Success teams) and for our external Hiver Community.
If a customer flags an issue via Slack to their Customer Success Manager, a support agent steps in instantly, sometimes even hopping on a call to help resolve it live.
“We don’t gate support behind premium plans. Whether you’re on a free trial or our highest tier, you get the same fast, human-first help.” – Akshay
The Tools That Power Hiver’s Round-the-Clock Support
Besides Hiver (of course!), the team relies on a thoughtfully chosen set of tools to stay efficient and proactive:
- Slack – Internal comms and community support
- ClickUp – Tracks bugs, ad-hoc support requests, and customer issues
- Google Meet / Zoom / Calendly – For customer calls and live troubleshooting
- Aircall – Outbound calls for urgent issues
- Loom – Quick, contextual walkthroughs
- Guru – Internal knowledge base for process clarity
- Gainsight & GoInsight – Surface usage patterns and account context
- ChatGPT – Helps sharpen replies, proofread, and speed up responses
“To deliver seamless 24/7 support, we rely on a mix of communication and productivity tools that complement Hiver and help us stay fast and efficient.” – Akshay
This mix allows agents to meet customers on their preferred channel and respond with context, speed, and clarity, whether it’s a product bug or a how-to question at 3 AM.
The Real Impact of 24/7 Customer Service
Before going 24/7, Hiver’s support team operated only during IST hours, and still managed a stellar 96%+ CSAT. However, as customer activity started surging during weekends and after hours (especially during the early pandemic), the team expanded into a full 24/7 model.
What changed?
- Response times dropped to under 40 seconds
- CSAT stayed consistently above 95%
- Customers started engaging more freely, reaching out for both complex bugs and quick clarifications
“When people know you’re there for them anytime, they’re more likely to reach out, more likely to stick around, and more likely to trust you.” – Akshay
How Hiver Makes 24/7 Support Sustainable for the Team
What’s the hardest part of 24/7 support? According to Akshay, it’s not what you’d expect.
“There wasn’t any dramatic challenge. The need was clear, the plan was communicated, and the team was all in.”
Still, running a round-the-clock operation requires thorough and intentional planning:
- Shifts are rotated thoughtfully so weekend agents get three days off
- Leave approvals are prioritized, even when someone’s covering nights
- Team members step up for each other when someone’s out sick or on leave
“Burnout isn’t an issue because we plan for rest. The whole setup runs in harmony. We trust each other, and that’s the real glue.” – Harsha
Advice to Companies Exploring 24/7 Support
If you’re considering a move to 24/7 service, here’s what Akshay recommends:
- Start with clarity: Know why you’re doing it, and communicate that to your team.
- Start small: Cover your most active channel first (e.g. chat), and expand as needed.
- Keep it human: Don’t overcomplicate with bots and automation unless it actually helps. Customers love honest conversations; even more so at odd hours.
- Make it sustainable: Thoughtful shifts, rest days, and internal support are key to long-term success.
“24/7 isn’t just a customer promise but a cultural mindset. When your team is aligned and supported, it’s completely doable.”
Why 24/7 Support Is the New Standard for Customer Loyalty
The days of signing off at 6 PM with an automated “Our office is now closed” are fading fast. Today’s customers don’t care what time it is; they care if you’re there when they need you. And that’s what 24/7 customer service is really about.
In this blog, we’ve unpacked the whys and hows of delivering excellent 24/7 customer service. The beauty is, you don’t need a sprawling global team to start. You need a plan, the right tools, and a commitment to be present. Start with one channel, extend your hours, run a pilot shift, and remember—keep quality at the core.
💡 Ready to meet your customers on their terms? Try Hiver’s 24/7 support platform free for 14 days. Let’s build support that never clocks out.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What does 24/7 customer service mean?
“24/7 customer service” means your support channels are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – in other words, all the time! Customers can reach out at any hour on any day (including weekends and holidays) and get assistance. This could be delivered by live staff, automated systems, or a combination.
2. Do I need a full team of staff working around the clock to have 24/7 support?
Not at all. Many companies deliver round-the-clock support without staffing their office 24/7. It’s all about using the right mix of tools and team models. Here are a few ways to do it:
- Self-service tools like knowledge bases or AI chatbots can resolve common questions instantly.
- Outsourcing after-hours coverage to a trusted call center or live chat provider keeps support running without adding headcount.
- Follow-the-sun model: If you have teams (or contractors) in multiple time zones, you can rotate coverage globally; no one has to work graveyard shifts.
- On-call rotation: Smaller teams often designate one person per night (with a laptop or phone) for urgent issues, while a bot handles routine ones.
You don’t need to stretch your internal team thin. Smart automation and global support partners can get you to 24/7 service, sustainably.
3. How much does it cost to offer 24/7 support?
It depends on your setup, but it’s probably more affordable than you think. Here’s a rough breakdown by approach:
- Self-service & automation: If you rely on a chatbot or knowledge base, your costs may just be a few hundred dollars per month (for software subscriptions).
- Outsourced coverage: Live chat services like HelpSquad offer 24/7 coverage for as little as $185/month, which is far cheaper than hiring full-time staff.
- In-house team: Hiring 2-3 night shift agents can cost tens of thousands per year, including salaries and night shift premiums.
- Hybrid models: Many businesses mix a lean night team with chatbots to lower costs while maintaining round-the-clock availability.
4. What software or tools help deliver 24/7 customer service?
There are a bunch of great tools to help you run 24/7 support smoothly. Here are a few key types:
- Helpdesk: Help desk software like Hiver centralizes email, chat, and tasks so day and night teams stay in sync. These tools also help you track support performance.
- Live Chat: Tools like Intercom or Crisp help offer real-time web support, with mobile access for on-call agents.
- Chatbots: Platforms like Ada or Drift answer FAQs instantly and escalate to humans when needed.
- Knowledge Base: You can offer 24/7 self-serve options with tools like Hiver KB or Document360.
- Community Forums: Use platforms like Discourse or Khoros to build peer support communities.
- Cloud Phone Systems: Aircall or RingCentral route calls to global or on-call agents.
- Alerts and Handoffs: Slack or PagerDuty help instantly notify agents of critical tickets.
Many modern customer service platforms (like Hiver) combine several of the above capabilities, including a unified inbox for email and chat, integrated knowledge base, SLA tracking, etc., all in one place. Adopting such a platform can simplify running 24/7 support since you have one login for agents and a consistent view of customer interactions.
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