Time-Zone Challenges While Working with an Offshore Technical Support Managed Service Provider

While working with an offshore technical support managed service provider is extremely beneficial, it comes with a set of challenges that must be put into consideration to achieve maximum efficiency.

One of the often-overlooked challenges that come with outsourcing is the difference in time zones. These differences, if not handled properly, can introduce problems, communication delays, and missed service level targets.

This is why we’ve gathered the key time-zone-related challenges companies face when partnering with offshore technical support MSPs!

1. Scheduling Training Sessions

It’s important to always keep up with your employees and offer training sessions for them. Time-zone differences make scheduling these training sessions or knowledge transfer between your onshore and offshore teams challenging.

Coordinating live, interactive sessions that suit both parties can be difficult, often resulting in either side attending at inconvenient hours or missing out on crucial information. 

2. Communication Delays

When teams operate in different time zones, there will be an inevitable overlap in working hours. A study by Harvard Business School found that even a one-hour time difference can lead to an 11% decrease in real-time communication.

This is important to tackle because it can lead to delayed responses to emails and support tickets, slower escalation paths for incidents, and missed updates.

These issues can result in bigger problems; if a critical issue arises at midnight for your company, the technical offshore team might already be off, delaying the resolution until the next working day.

3. Limited Real-Time Collaboration

Working, especially in technical support, often depends on real-time collaboration between your onshore and offshore teams.

Different time zones can affect this flow of communication because it can restrict daily meetings and incident response frequency.

This can greatly affect the Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) and lead to internal problems among the teams.

4. Service Level Agreement Breaches

While most MSPs commit to 24/7 coverage and specific SLAs, without proper shift planning and time-zone consideration, coverage gaps can still arise.

For instance, SLAs might be written in the client’s local time zone but misinterpreted by offshore staff in their own local time, resulting in bigger problems.

Also, tickets logged outside of offshore business hours might sit idle longer than expected. These could all result in huge work delays, costing your business both money and time.

5. Difficulty Aligning Skilled Workers with Your Hours

Finding skilled offshore technical support staff who are willing and able to work during your business hours is also a challenge most businesses don’t expect.

While some may agree to these shifts, many experienced professionals prefer standard local shifts. This can limit access to top-tier talent, increase turnover, or result in inconsistent support coverage.

This is why it’s important to find a managed service provider that offers a wide range of professionals who are willing to work in different time zones.

FlairsTech, for example, offers 24/7 support with a wide variety of agents who are available day and night in several languages to attend to an international customer base. If this interests you, contact us, and one of our agents will reach out to you as soon as possible!

Working with an offshore technical support managed service provider offers a lot of benefits, yet time-zone differences are a real operational challenge.

By acknowledging this challenge and implementing thoughtful strategies, businesses can preserve SLA integrity and also build a healthy, collaborative, and productive outsourcing relationship.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the main time-zone challenges when working with offshore technical support providers?

Common challenges include communication delays, limited overlapping work hours, difficulty in real-time collaboration, and SLA breaches.

2. How do time-zone differences impact SLA compliance in offshore technical support?

Misaligned working hours can cause delays in ticket response and resolution times, leading to missed SLA targets if shift planning and handoffs are not properly managed.

3. Why is real-time collaboration difficult with offshore MSPs in different time zones?

Time-zone differences limit overlapping hours where teams can meet live, making daily stand-ups, incident management, and prompt problem-solving hard.

4. Is it hard to find skilled offshore workers willing to work in different time zones?

Yes, finding talent willing to work non-standard hours aligned with the client’s time zone is challenging and can limit staffing options. 

5. Can proper time-zone management improve offshore technical support outcomes?

Yes. Clear schedules, overlapping work hours, cultural awareness, and proper planning can preserve SLA integrity and boost collaboration.