They are employee friendly though and happy employees do good work. 
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True.
Yet, a job in customer support should aim at making customers happy as well; 'cause at the end of the day they are the ones providing the money for the paychecks. 
There must be a compromise like one or two days with longer/different working hours.
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Let’s be honest: Those, who really need urgent phone support are companies. For those the times are perfectly fine. For us normal people it’s inconvenient on the one hand, but on the other hand we too want normal working hours and we don’t want to work night shifts or on weekends. 
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Honest:
9:30 to 17:30 is well within my usual working hours (6:00 to 18:30) travel to and from work included).
And one or at least two days with support-hours up to 20:00 are not exactly “night shift” but simply standard for lots of businesses like veterinaries, hairdressers …
And even working on Saturdays is quite common (although luckily not for me).
And it’s not about urgent phone support, it’s plain and simple about working hours, that enable everyone to reach support easily.
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That’s what e-mail is for. I do appreciate that we always want everything at once, but I also honour that Fairphone doesn’t enslave their employees. Giving technical support is quite stressing and we can have that proven when I hear that they moved from full-time jobs in the support team to half-time jobs because people got burnt out too easily.
From my point of view, it is not necessary to be able to call a technical support line of my smartphone manufacturer after 17:30.
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Right. I think it could be a nice compromise to have someone on the phone on Saturdays. Somebody must be willing to work on weekends and get a weekday free. It’s common and accepted for so many jobs, I think it should be possible in customer support.
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Quite right; unless I have to wait 50 days for a reply to my e-mail.
And once more: working after 17:30 is hardly enslaving someone.
Don’t get me wrong. I am quite comfortable with halftime working in support only to prevent health issues. I just don’t feel it’s inevitable, that the working hours have to end before 18:00. Why not on day with support from 12:00 to 20:00.
(Tbh. I guess, that the wage would be a different one, making support more expensive.)
Would you be willing to go back to shop hours 9 to 18 and closed inbetween from 12 to 15?
And even then the shops were open past 17:30.
By the way in the old times when you happened to know the shop-keeper you simply rang him up at home if you were in dire need of something.
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Yes. When I was in Hamburg the supermarket around the corner closed at 21:00. What was the result? I became lazy and went shopping for groceries later than I would have done ever in Austria (here supermarkets usually close at 19:00, at least in my town).
Just because there is someone, who will do the job, doesn’t mean we need to create that job. Business hours on Saturdays would be a compromise, I guess.
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Please try to keep in mind, that more than one customers has complained about service hours and the need of the phone for work. There are people out there, who really depend on a working phone; it’s not just companies. If you are self employed (e.g. a workman) or have to travel a lot, you nowadays depend on a working phone to be reachable by colleagues, customers etc.
And it’s not always laziness. I for example leave office regularly later than 17:00 hours and my trip home takes more than 70 minutes (by bus and train).
19:00 would be feasible for shopping. 17:30 clearly not. By the way the 19:00 is clearly closer to the 20:00 I mentioned than to the 17:30. Especially when you are working in an area where there’s no shop within reach for shopping during your lunch break.
And by the way, you can be sure, that the people working in the shops in your town cant leave shop at 19:00. Before that they have to clear up, do the daily balancing of the cash register etc. Therefore especially when it comes to shopping, the working hours are longer than opening hours.
Customer support is a service job and in service the customer is king. If support by e-mail fails I have to make up for this in another way.
Well, that’s just my point of view.
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This actually supports my point. By the way, shops are open on Saturdays too. IMO, society should rather create a day job on a Saturday than an evening job during the week.
There are people like me out there, whose biorhythm is rather in favor of working later in the day, while they would prefer to sleep longer in the morning.
And I rather would prefer a free weekend over being home an hour earlier.
No more disco or meeting in a restaurant then (i.e. in the evening)?
If restaurants and the like are ok, then, who is to decide which kind of job is suitable for evenings or even nights. And tradition is no argument.
I just mean to show, that those “cruel” working hours after 17:30 are not that bad to everyone and that it means a limitation of choices.
Of course I am aware, that it’s not always a matter of free chosing.
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“Biorythm” isn’t something you decide on, it’s defined by the sunrise and sunset.
A Human’s Biological Clock (click for more info)
(CC BY-SA 3.0 YassineMrabet)
and your genetics, epi-genetics, environment, experience, psyche, …
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@Stefan
You don’t mean to tell me, that this graphically really well done picture is how each and every human being works.
Sorry, but that’s absurd, as you can observe for yourself, when you take a look at yourself and all the people around you.
And I never did say, that I decide on my “biorhythm”. Well, I guess you are right insofart that biorhythm is the wrong term anyway, as I did not mean to refer to something esoteric.
I said, that I feel and experience it. While I have done lots of my best work during the nighttime - literally working past midnight and starting really late -, I am usually not at my best (to say the least) in the early morning hours or in the afternoon. And that did not depend on wether I was working late the night before. Therefore a short 20 minutes powernap in the morning and in the afternood work miracles for me.
I can usually cope with a max of 5 hours sleep, while other people I know need 8 or more; so I am really convinced, that this nice biological clock is a gread concept to start with, but it’s not the way everyone “ticks”.
Well, for me it’s clearly my weaker self (innerer Schweinehund). I have done some of my best work at 6 AM after getting up at 5:15 AM. 
See, too early; that hardly fits the clock you posted.
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Yep, and it is difficult for a small company to have people working in support after work hours but also during work hours. Either people run long shifts, or you need to hire more people who work in smaller shifts.
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The text on your linked picture says the following:
Meal times is certainly something an adult can alter. Exercise as well, though time must and physiologically must allow. Ambient temperature, depends on housing, and finally stress… well that’s a tough one.
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Ok, granted, I didn’t read properly. 
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