Is 24/7 Support Necessary?

Members of the ISP-Tech list discuss whether or when it is necessary to have the help desk open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week—there are limits to what any small business can do.

[January 26, 2001]

On the ISP-Tech list in January, JY queried,

"What's the effect, pro or con, of extending tech support hours to 24/7?"

A number of respondents suggested that it's not worth the effort or the expense:

[SS contended] "We have a hard enough time staffing the 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. shifts we already have."

[KF added] "Do you really have enough of a need to provide those extra hours of support? We have our answering service page the on-call tech with messages from customers that are having difficulties. I have found that we get darn few calls after 8 P.M., and even fewer after 9 P.M. or 10 P.M. We're not a small ISP, but we don't have thousands of customers either. If you have someone there until 10 P.M., I would think that was enough."

[BK agreed] "Look at the customer demographics. Is it mostly business? Students? That would typically drive when the demand for tech support occurs. Also, what is the call volume? When does it peak? When does it slack off? I would almost bet that if tech support wasn't available from 2 A.M. to 7 A.M., no one would really care. The customer is so tired by then that they'd welcome the idea of going to bed instead of stumbling sleepy-eyed through a problem."

Others noted some circumstances under which 24-hour, or at least weekend, support would be a good idea:

[RJ noted] "The main thing that you need to consider is the expectations of your subscriber base. If you are in a small town and you provide support from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M., then they will call at those times because that is what they expect. However, if you are in a large city, then they will expect 24/7. You expect a different kind of service from Wal-Mart than from a family-owned hardware store."

[SO observed] "I am currently working tech support 24/7. We do network monitoring 24/7 anyway, so we need to have someone here at the office. If we didn't, the 24/7 tech support would be very uneconomical. I usually receive anywhere from zero to five calls for my ten-hour overnight shift (10 P.M. to 8 A.M.). It has been my experience that people who are surfing the net late at night are for the most part far more computer-literate than the average user and can get themselves out of their predicaments.

However, I would definitely suggest weekend tech support (even if only normal business hours). We get anywhere from 50-100 calls on an average weekend day."

—End