Hi All,

I'm looking at expanding hours of operation for an online retail store with customers across Canada and the U.S.. We are currently offering Customer Care 9-6pm EST but want to offer more value to our customers.

What hours have you found most valuable to your customers?
What are your thoughts on offering limited services outside of business hours(all high-sensitivity tasks would be recorded with customer contact information and performed by a senior team member the following morning)?

Thanks!

My first recommendation is to take a look at your reporting tools that show how many customers want to or try to contact you after your regular hours of operation. Look at a minumum of 2 months of historical reports so you have a true understanding of your after hours contacts.

Second, Look at your customer base and if a majority of your customer base is on the West Coast closing at 3pm PST (6 EST) doesn't support your main customer base.

Third, You can also look at how many customers have complained that they cannot access your contact center after a certain time.

If you find that you only have a few messages after you close, have your first Rep - which in my case is always a Senior Rep follow-up immediately the next day. Most customers understand that businesses are not open 24/7.

If you want to add value to your online store, look into webchat, notification if product sold out becomes available, emails about specials, discounts etc.

Good Luck!

Thanks for your feedback! This will be very helpful in evaluating how we're doing and what are next steps need to be.