In the process of assisting enterprises in deploying Intercom, we actively collect and summarize user feedback. Among these, one frequently asked question is how to support 24/7 customer service.

In the past, due to the lack of night-shift customer service staff and intelligent routing mechanisms, enterprises faced the challenge of losing a large number of overseas customer inquiries. Requests generated outside working hours could not receive immediate responses nor be intelligently routed to service teams in the corresponding time zones. More seriously, offline messages were not automatically synchronized to the team’s ticketing system, resulting in missed critical needs from customers in different time zones, directly impacting customer experience and business conversion.

Next, this article will dive into how to achieve seamless 24/7 customer service support by configuring time-based automatic routing rules, enabling AI chatbots to respond in real-time, and leveraging offline message auto-archiving features.

Customer Pain Points

Take cross-border e-commerce enterprises as an example. An overseas customer inquires late at night about detailed information regarding a product, including material, size, and shipping time. Since there are no support agents available during the night, the customer cannot receive an immediate response and must wait until the next day for an answer.

This delay not only makes the customer feel ignored but may also lead them to doubt the company’s responsiveness and service quality. In the highly competitive cross-border e-commerce market, customers may turn to competitors who can provide immediate assistance, resulting in lost potential orders.

Say Goodbye to Customer Service Challenges—Intercom Delivers Seamless 24/7 Support!

To address the issue of unattended night shifts and unanswered inquiries, Intercom’s AI chatbot provides 24/7 customer service, automatically responding to customer inquiries. Simple questions are answered instantly, while complex issues prompt customers to leave a message or send an email, ensuring priority handling the following day. This not only significantly reduces manual workload but also prevents customer churn caused by lack of response, improving customer satisfaction and retention.

Intercom’s intelligent workflow feature allows enterprises to flexibly set automatic routing logic for different time periods according to business needs, ensuring timely responses to customer issues. For example:

1. Working Hours (9:00–18:00)

During the hours when the customer service team is online, the system can automatically assign inquiries to available agents, or let the AI chatbot handle simple questions first while seamlessly transferring complex cases to human agents for efficient responses.

2. Nighttime (18:00–9:00)

Outside working hours, the system can trigger AI chatbot auto-replies or guide customers to submit inquiries via email, with a commitment to priority handling the next day. Meanwhile, all offline messages are fully recorded and automatically sent to the team’s mailbox or integrated into the CRM system (e.g., HubSpot), ensuring no important information is missed and enabling the service team to quickly follow up the next day.

Powered by AI, Intercom Ushers in a New Era of Customer Service

As an innovation leader in customer service, Intercom has pioneered an around-the-clock intelligent support solution with its AI Agent Fin. Fin delivers global, timezone-free service through powerful AI voice call capabilities, automatically handles complex requests such as refunds with intelligent image recognition, and is equipped with a real-time multilingual translation engine—empowering enterprises to truly achieve seamless 24/7 global customer support.