01The problem
Nobody answers Europe before 13:00 CET. Just under a third of tickets arrive in that window and wait a median of six hours ten for a first reply — not a resolution.
We cannot rota our way out of it: the US team already starts early and the median has not moved in three quarters. Two of the five enterprise accounts we lost named response time in their exit call. Both European.
02What I propose
One support engineer in Lisbon, starting January, covering 08:00–17:00 CET. Our rotation, our tooling, the same queue — not an outsourced tier one, not a follow-the-sun handover. Lisbon because we have an entity there, so hiring runs ten weeks rather than four months.
03What it costs
- Salary and employer costs, band S3$88,000
- Tooling seats and equipment$3,400
- Recruiting fee, internal$2,000
- First-year total$93,400
No new vendor, no new process, no change to the on-call contract. Finance confirms the band sits inside the FY27 envelope.
04What it buys
Modelled on eight months of volume, first response falls from six hours ten to under forty-five minutes — 31% of volume moves from our worst band to our best.
It also gives the four European accounts renewing in Q2 — $340k of ARR — a named contact in their own working day. Three have asked for one.
05What we give up
The help-centre rewrite, the other claim on this budget. It is worth doing; I am arguing order, not merit. The rewrite cuts ticket volume about 8%. The hire changes the experience of 31%, and for the accounts actually leaving.
And if the hire lands, the rewrite becomes a stronger Q3 proposal — someone in the timezone will know which articles are missing.