5 reasons why all startups depend on an after-hours IT Help Desk and other coverage

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A typical startup has 3 to 4 founding members, who will spend about a year creating products or services, learning to understand the market needs. Then, the time comes to either fully commits to the project or quit. Sadly, more than 90% of startups never make it past one year.
But those that do find themselves in the wonderful and scary world of entrepreneurship. And they find themselves facing the same question over and over again: How do I get to be available 24/7 without putting myself and my new staff through too much?
The solution: an after-hours IT helpdesk, customer support or care center.

1. Scaling Up

One of the main reasons start-ups have a hard time becoming truly successful is that they do not understand when and how to scale up. Some do it too quickly and run out of funds halfway through. Others wait too long and are unable to meet customer demand or lose traction because they get distracted or bogged down with unimportant tasks.
This is why an after-hours service or other BPO solution is so vital for any startup. It gives a new CEO the resources to add to their team at the drop of a hat without having to go through a rigorous staffing program and hiring everyone themselves. It demands change, scaling down or changing to a different team (from an IT help desk to customer service or sales for example) can be done very easily.

2. Low Risk, High Reward

When you run a start-up, risk management is everything. Becoming an entrepreneur is risky in itself, so you don’t need any added headaches and risk factors making your life more complicated. This is why an outsourced customer service solution is so ideal. There is no risk factor involved. By outsourcing customer support, you will not be investing time and effort in managing the help desk or customer service team. Most CEOs believe help desk or customer support is very simple, just answering customer queries via phone, email or chat or a combination. They often times miss understand that it’s a very specialized vertical and needs domain experts.

Every CEO must answer the following questions before taking the plunge of running support services in-house — How to optimize resources when scaling up? What metrics to track? What SLAs to follow? How to train the team efficiently? How to manage a knowledge portal which is changing by the day or sometimes by the hour? How to ensure your team delivers nothing short of brilliant customer experience?

We have seen CEOs and the core team struggle with something as basic as creating professional-looking email drafts. Unfortunately, CEOs realize this much later when they start losing the grip on processes and functions. When you outsource your support function, you minimize the risk of going through the learning curve, reinventing the wheel, learning by mistakes, investing time in non-core activities, burning up too much cash due to inefficient processes and so on.

3. Saving Money

Staffing your customer service desk is expensive. Staffing your IT help desk is even more expensive. And now imagine if you had to staff them for all 3 shifts. But what if there was a low-cost solution to that? What if you could staff your after-hours IT help desk at little to no extra cost?
Every startup understands that being available all the time is incredibly important. With today’s globalized approach, you can’t afford to only focus on your own timezone. You need to be ready to answer a call, no matter what time of day it may be.

4. Flexible Approach

So, today you need an after-hours IT help desk. But tomorrow, you need 2 extra people to help out with your customer service. Then, you unexpectedly lose your remote receptionist. How can you keep up with these ever-changing demands without hiring (and paying for!) a whole HR team?
Outsource support vendor is the solution. Your outsourced service provider with provide you with a constant roster of fully qualified staff, ready to take on the next mission. It will provide you with access to fully trained customer service reps, receptionists, or even IT specialists at the drop of a hat.

5. Pressure off your Team

Working for a start-up is tough. And most people do it for the love of it. There is a lot of insecurity, especially in the early years. You need to ensure that the people who are loyal to you and your grand plan don’t get run too rough. Can you really expect them to come in at 4 am to do an important business call with the other side of the world or deal with vendor questions, 2 hours after their shift has ended?

No.

Outsourcing customer support solution will take the pressure off and allow your team to enjoy their well deserved time off & energize themselves for the next big challenge which will help you scale your dream machine.
Yes, as an entrepreneur, you never really rest. But your staff should. And customer support will handle the rest.

You created something new, something fresh and exciting. The world should get to see it! Your startup needs to be run the right way, so you can keep creating, making, finding awesome solutions.

With 31West as your dedicated partner for after-hours IT help desk solutions and customer service coverage, you can’t go wrong.

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