24 hour tech support is now a standard feature offered by every web hosting company. But some companies do it better than others, and attract customers in droves.

The winners make fewer mistakes, and focus on a few key areas that makes customers loyal to the company.

Today’s post is about the common mistakes in delivering 24/7 support, and how the winners get it right.

Here at Bobcares, we help web hosts and web designers maintain 24 hour tech support over Phone, Live Chat and Email. Very often we’re contacted by hosting companies who want us to figure out how to fix their support operations and drive positive reviews.

Among the many support operations issues that we’ve fixed, 3 of them stand out, and here’s how we’ve fixed them.

[ See how we help web hosts deliver high quality support. ]

1. Emergency help is best delivered over phone

Some companies try to save costs by delivering emergency support over email. That usually leads to frustrated customers who don’t know if someone has actually received their mail, or if someone is working on it, or when things will be resolved.

Emergency situations such as email downs, website errors, etc. are best handled over phone, because:

1. Human factor – Talking to a living, breathing person is any day better than an impersonal email. During emergencies, customers need reassurance, and a human voice is the best way to deliver it.
2. The interaction happens in real time : Unlike mail communication, the customer knows that someone is looking into the issue RIGHT NOW. That someone is accountable at that moment.
3. Helps quick & accurate issue troubleshooting – Upset customers tend to leave out critical information. On phone, the techs can ask precise questions to quickly find out what’s going wrong.
4. Assess customer satisfaction – It is important to de-escalate a situation before signing off from a support interaction. On phone, it is easier to understand if a customer is happy with the resolution, and if not, more actions can be initiated to make the customer happy.

While some customers don’t mind sending in a mail during emergencies, a vast majority of users would pay a slightly higher price to be able to call their company if they have an emergency.

If used right, this can be a powerful marketing edge. Such high level of personalized support can put your company in the premium league while keeping the price comparable to your competitors.

[ See how Bobcares helps web hosts provide 24 hour emergency support. ]

2. Phone is ideal for initial service setup

For an average small business owner, terms like MX record and CNAME record can be very confusing. And no, sending a detailed welcome mail with pictures isn’t going to ease the pain of having to learn a ton of new terms.

If you want to make a great first impression and keep your customers for a long time, give them an option to call you to setup their account.

That is why when a company contacts us for support, one of the first things we look at is the type of customers they have. If we see a majority of them are small business owners, we recommend them to use phone support for initial hand holding.

Of course, using phone support is not a replacement to email support. You can still send your customers setup instructions and even videos. It can come in quite handy when explaining the settings over phone.

One small step like this can go a long way in reducing customer churn, and save hundreds of dollars in marketing down the line.

[ See how we deliver friendly support. ]

3. Small things like cultural identity is important

Sure, everyone understands that it is a global economy and support could be delivered by an external company.

But, it has been our experience that customers are more co-operative when they talk to someone they can identify with. That is why all our phone support operations are based out of USA, or more specifically, Phoenix, AZ.

[ See how we deliver 100% white labeled North American phone support. ]

Conclusion

24 hour tech support is offered by everyone these days. But very often poorly implemented support operations do more damage then good. Today we’ve seen how you can stand out from the crowd by delivering 24 hour personalized phone support that gives you a powerful marketing edge, and doesn’t cost you a lot of money.