Providing 24/7 support is no longer a "nice-to-have" for global companies, it’s the standard. But forcing a local team to work graveyard shifts leads to burnout, high turnover, and sluggish response times.
Enter the Follow-the-Sun (FTS) support model. When executed correctly, it allows your business to provide seamless, "always-on" service by passing tasks between teams in different time zones.
In this guide, we’ll break down how to design a resilient follow-the-sun strategy, why most setups fail during the "handover," and how to visualize your coverage to eliminate gaps.
What Is the Follow-the-Sun Model?
The Follow-the-Sun support model is a global operating strategy where customer issues are handled by employees in their local daytime hours, then passed to a team in the next time zone as the workday ends.
Unlike a traditional 24/7 model that relies on rotating night shifts in a single location, the FTS model leverages a distributed workforce. As the sun sets in London, the "baton" is passed to a team in San Francisco; as the sun sets there, it moves to Sydney or Manila.
Core Pillars of Follow-the-Sun:
- Geographic Distribution: Teams are strategically placed across major time zones (e.g., EMEA, AMER, and APAC).
- Work-Life Balance: By eliminating the "graveyard shift," companies improve employee retention and mental health.
- Reduced Latency: Customers receive "live" help regardless of their local time.
- Operational Continuity: Work continues around the clock, accelerating resolution times for complex technical issues.
Pro Tip: To manage a global team effectively, you need a centralized global support scheduling system to ensure everyone knows exactly when their "sun" starts and ends.
Why Most Follow-the-Sun Setups Still Fail
On paper, the model is simple. In practice, most companies encounter "The Handover Trap." If your strategy is just a series of disconnected shifts, your customer experience will suffer.
Here are the primary reasons FTS models collapse:
- The "Throw it Over the Wall" Mentality: Without a structured follow-the-sun handover, critical context is lost. A ticket passed from Dublin to Los Angeles without clear notes results in the customer having to repeat their problem.
- Lack of Overlap Windows: If the London team leaves at exactly 5:00 PM and the New York team starts at 9:00 AM local time, you often face a "dead zone" or a rushed transition.
- Time Zone Complexity: Managing UTC vs. Local Time is a logistical nightmare. Miscalculating Daylight Savings Time (DST) in one region can leave your support desk empty for an hour without anyone realizing it.
- Information Silos: When teams don't share the same tools or documentation standards, the quality of support fluctuates wildly depending on which region is awake.
How to Design a Proper Follow-the-Sun Coverage Strategy
To build a high-performing global workforce management strategy, you need more than just a map; you need a framework. Follow these five steps to ensure 100% reliability.
1. Define Customer Operating Windows
Don't just cover 24 hours because it sounds good. Analyze your ticket volume. When do your customers actually need you? Align your staffing levels with peak volume across regions to ensure you aren't overstaffed in quiet zones.
2. Map Team Availability (The UTC Anchor)
Never plan your global schedule in local time. Use UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) as your "source of truth." This prevents confusion during seasonal time shifts and ensures that your multi-region coverage is mathematically sound.
3. Ensure an Overlap Buffer (30–60 Minutes)
This is the "Golden Rule" of FTS. You must have a minimum of 30 minutes where both the outgoing and incoming teams are online simultaneously. This time is dedicated to:
- Live debriefs on high-priority incidents.
- Reviewing the "state of the queue."
- Ensuring no ticket is left in limbo.
4. Detect Uncovered Windows
Use a time zone coverage planning tool to visualize your shifts. You are looking for "white space" those 15-to-20-minute gaps that occur during shift changes or lunch breaks, which can cause SLA breaches.
5. Simulate Incidents During Transitions
Test your model by "dropping" a high-priority ticket 10 minutes before a regional handover. If the resolution stalls, your handover process needs better documentation or a longer overlap.
Follow-the-Sun Coverage Example (With Visualization)
Visualization is the only way to truly understand a global schedule. A list of names and times in a spreadsheet is where errors go to hide.
[INSERT SCREENSHOT OF SOON COVERAGE MAP HERE]
In a proper follow-the-sun coverage map, you should be able to see:
- Regional Overlays: Where teams in Manila, Berlin, and New York intersect.
- Gap Flags: Automated alerts when a specific hour has fewer than the required number of agents.
- Skill-Based Layers: Ensuring you don't just have "bodies" online, but agents with the right technical expertise for the current tickets.
Free Tool: Test Your Follow-the-Sun Coverage
Are you currently "guessing" your coverage? We built a tool to help you stop.
Check out our Free Follow-the-Sun Coverage Map to visualize your global team’s availability in real-time. Plug in your regions, see your overlaps, and identify your risks in seconds.
When You Need More Than a Map
A map identifies a problem; a scheduling platform solves it. If your support team is growing, you will eventually hit the "Complexity Ceiling."
Manual scheduling falls apart when you have to account for:
- Shift Complexity: Handling rotations, PTO, and sick leave across three continents.
- Forecasting: Predicting how many agents you need in Singapore versus London next month.
- Skill-Based Routing: Ensuring that the "awake" team actually has the training to handle the specific incoming tickets.
When "handing over the baton" becomes a source of stress rather than a competitive advantage, it’s time for scheduling automation.
Modern tools like Soon allow you to automate the logic of the follow-the-sun model, ensuring that your 24/7 coverage is resilient, transparent, and most importantly profitable.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is follow-the-sun support?
It is a type of global operational model where work is passed between offices in different time zones to provide 24-hour coverage without requiring employees to work night shifts.
What are the benefits of follow-the-sun operations?
The primary benefits include increased employee satisfaction (no graveyard shifts), faster ticket resolution (24/7 productivity), and better local-language support for global customers.
What are the risks of follow-the-sun?
The biggest risks are "knowledge loss" during handovers, inconsistent service quality between regions, and logistical errors caused by complex time zone math and Daylight Savings changes.
How do you prevent handover issues?
Prevent issues by implementing a mandatory 30-minute overlap window, using standardized handover templates, and utilizing a centralized communication channel (like Slack or Teams) dedicated to shift transitions.
How do you manage time zones in support teams?
The best practice is to use a centralized scheduling tool anchored in UTC. This provides a single source of truth for all regions and automatically accounts for local time variances.
