Your customer support agents should go home on time, but your customer support should never go home. The “salaryman”, typically associated with Japan, is a white-collar employee of a large corporation who gives his/her life to the employer — working overtime every day, for example — in exchange for income and job security.

While this killer work ethic is known to be unconducive for living beyond one’s 30s or 40s, artificial intelligence (AI) has no biological form and hence, no right to life. In other words, AI cannot be killed by overwork. So, why are you not taking advantage of this truth of life?

In the “always-on” culture of the 2020s, your organization’s customer service standard should intelligently align with the salaryman’s way of life to exceed expectations in the realm of customer experience.

In this post, we present the main reasons for implementing customer support on a 24/7 basis, how AI can help with that, and some next steps for you to consider.‍

1. Customers demand it‍

Customers today demand fast responses to their questions. 90% of customers rate an "immediate" response as important or very important when they have a customer service question. 60% of customers define "immediate" as 10 minutes or less.

Put another way: If you don’t run a 24/7 service, then you have no chance of meeting the exacting standards of modern consumers.

And there’s every sign that coming generations will be even more demanding when it comes to time. According to HubSpot, 71% of consumers aged 16–24 believe a quick response from a customer service team drastically improves their experience. Waiting for your customer support staff to wake up won’t cut it with Generation Z.

2. Knowledge is power at all times

‍What is the most empowering thing you can give your customers? Knowledge. Equipping your customers with the knowledge to help them self-serve is one of the best ways to save them — and you — loads of time on the phone or over email. For example, why spend a long phone conversation explaining how they can change their password when a quick video or text summary on your website will help them achieve the same result faster?

This is especially true in off-hours situations when accessing your company’s knowledge base would be an extremely useful option for everyone concerned.‍

READ MORE: 14 powerful stats that prove the importance of self-service in the customer experience‍‍‍

3. Improve customer experience, improve sales

‍‍A Gartner report found that customer experience is “the new battlefield” for customers: a staggering 89% of companies expect to compete mainly on the basis of customer experience.

If your customer experience only extends to your opening hours, it’s time to assess whether that’s good enough. After all, we know the difference that customer experience makes for your bottom line.

An American Express study showed that happy American customers share their positive experiences with about 11 people — but angry customers will share their negative experiences with about 15 people.

There’s also evidence to suggest that answering a question quickly during the consideration process translates to better sales figures. Don’t miss out on those sales, whatever the time of day.

A better customer experience leads to better sales, better customer retention, and better customer loyalty.

4. Inspire confidence and trust in your brand

‍How do you want your brand to appear? Accessible? Trustworthy? Dynamic? You probably want to embody all three positive qualities. Customers do buy into the brand when they make purchasing decisions; it’s what makes companies like Apple a huge success.

How dynamic, trustworthy, or accessible will your organization appear if customers can’t get customer support whenever they want it, in a convenient format? In that case, they may choose a different company that offers 24/7 customer support instead.

Infuse your customer support with the salaryman spirit, and customers will associate your company’s brand image with unwavering dedication.

5. Stop the backlog before it becomes a backlog

‍If your customers send inquiries overnight, then your customer support agents are likely to log on first thing in the morning with a long list of time-sensitive requests. This creates a backlog before they’ve even started, leaving longer waits for customers who have requests during the day.

Getting on top of the answerable questions with AI as a Service (AIaaS) tools is one way to prevent this queue before it’s even formed. Responding to these issues promptly means you’ll minimize their negative impact on your customer support agents’ workday.

Also, by not keeping customers waiting and waiting for a response, you decrease their stress levels. Win-win!

6. Embrace international opportunities

The potential for global sales has never been greater. The possibilities opened up by the Internet and long-tail searches allow you to sell to even the most obscure countries (Ever heard of Nauru?) and peoples whose languages (Ever heard of Dzongkha?) you never knew existed.

However, if these potential customers can’t access support in their time zone and in their own tongue, they may feel your product or service is not for them. With Raffle’s AI Search and AI Chat, you can woo these customers with salaryman-like support that understands and speaks all natural languages.

Don’t exclude people from different regions; embrace them all with culturally mindful, 24/7 customer service like an all-loving salaryman.

7. AI as a Service makes it easy

With the advent of AI as a Service (AIaaS) technology, there’s really no good reason not to offer 24/7 customer service.

Developments in AI mean connecting relevant answers from your knowledge base to your customer questions is now easier than ever, thus enabling your customers to self-serve quickly. This means no matter what time it is or where they are in the world, your customers have a way to get in touch with your company in some way.

Once again, think of AI as a salaryman: your loyal employee who doesn’t need sleep, and who can work overtime constantly to handle multiple requests properly. You must, however, be careful with the AI solution you choose.

A poorly designed or bad-fit solution will just create more work and frustration for your customer support agents and your users. Do some research into your business needs, and also pick a state-of-the-art (or “next-generation”) AI tool to lower the likelihood of unwanted headaches.‍

READ MORE: Conversational AI: to chatbot or not to chatbot?

Great service never sleeps. What’s next then?

So you’ve decided your organization needs 24/7 customer support. What should you do to make it happen?

As we stated above, artificial intelligence is making this possible for thousands of companies worldwide. There are many AI tools out there allowing customer self-service.

Without a shred of shame, we think Raffle Site Search is the best out there! Still, you should assess your options properly, and how they fit into your organization's overall strategy.

Consider how quickly you want the solution to be implemented, and how easily it can be integrated with your existing methods of communicating with your customers. The next step is getting buy-in from decision makers at your company, before contacting the relevant vendors.

‍Ready to learn more?

Get a no-commitment demo of our products, and start your journey to 24/7 customer service with Raffle AI.