Your manufacturing or distribution company is based on the east coast of the US.  Your business hours are 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday to Friday.  You sell throughout the US and are proud to say that you have customers in every state.

Based on the aforementioned scenario I can save this company money!  They should change their customer service hours from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm to 8:00 am to 2:00 pm.  Obviously, as they sell their products across the US and believe that their west coast customers do not need customer service after 2:00 pm, why are they wasting money by giving their east coast customers, customer service until 5:00 pm?

Yes, it is true that if the cut their customer service hours to 2:00 pm that the west coast only gets service until 11:00 am.  However, does it really make any sense not to provide the same level of customer service to all of the company’s customers, no matter where they are located?

The situation is exasperated even more if the company sells in Europe, and worse if it sells globally.  There is nothing more frustrating than calling a company and listening to a recording that says that their hours of operation are 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, you look at your watch and it’s only 3:00 pm and then you hear the magic words “Eastern Standard Time”.  The message usually goes on to say, “we value your business”, and you respond, under your breath – not likely!

Would this company consider shutting down their website evenings and weekends?  Yet, so many companies are more than willing to shut off personal customer contact during those periods.  You may find that providing customer service during the periods of time that your customers may require it is not as difficult as it sounds.  Many people are very happy to work off hours, allowing them to avoid rush hour traffic or utilize daytime hours for other things in their lives.

Successful companies know the value of good customer service.  Depending on whose statistics you read it can cost anywhere from four to ten times more to obtain a new customer than to maintain a current one.  Retailers learned along time ago that having extended hours to service customers is cost effective.  The incremental cost of opening extended hours is negligible.

If you look at the structure of the customer service department of Bombardier Aerospace, a very successful aircraft manufacturer, you will find that they have customer service 24/7.  You may say that if a company supplies aircraft that that this is a must.  I am not describing their emergency service, which also operates 24/7.  I am describing the operational hours of their basic customer service department.  Customers who wish to place orders for regular maintenance parts, check on the status of parts orders or their accounts can call when it is convenient to them, during their normal business hours, not convenient to the time zone that Bombardier’s facilities happen to be in.

We all talk about market driven companies.  Many times, we forget that customer service must also be market driven.