A missed reply during a power cut looks the same to a customer as a business that simply doesn’t care. They don’t know the support agent’s router just went down or that the office lost power for the third time that week, they just see a message sitting unanswered for two hours while they’re waiting to hear back about a wrong order or a late delivery. That gap is where a lot of Pakistani businesses lose customers who were otherwise satisfied with the actual product. A customer who’s already frustrated about a wrong order is far less forgiving of a slow reply than one reaching out with a simple question, which makes timing during a power cut even more critical.
Small businesses running customer support through a single person on WhatsApp or Instagram are especially exposed here, because there’s no backup layer at all. If that one person’s area loses power and their phone battery runs down before it can be charged, support simply stops until it comes back. Slightly larger operations with a small support team often assume the risk is covered because it’s a team, but if everyone works from the same office or the same part of the city, they’re all likely to lose power on the same feeder at the same time anyway. Even a rotating on-call arrangement, where one person stays reachable through backup power during known outage hours, can cover a surprising amount of this gap without adding real cost.
Fixes that don’t require a big budget
- Staggering support staff across different areas or feeders so they don’t all go dark together
- An automated away message during known outage windows that sets a realistic expectation instead of silence
- A cheap power bank kept charged specifically for the support phone, separate from personal use
The automated message point is underused and it’s nearly free to set up. A message that says replies may be delayed due to load shedding in the area, back shortly, changes how a customer interprets the silence entirely. It turns an unexplained gap into an understood one, and most customers in Pakistan, dealing with the same outages themselves, are far more patient with a business that’s upfront about it. Ikonix Marketing Agency sets this kind of expectation-setting messaging up for clients as part of their customer communication plan, alongside a support schedule that accounts for staff spread across different areas rather than assuming everyone stays reachable at the same time.
Power cuts are going to keep happening on a schedule mostly out of any single business’s control. Whether customer support survives them well usually comes down to whether the business planned for the silence, or just hoped nobody would notice it.