January 6 2026 | Deals | Mergers and acquisitions | M&A Advisors | CEO-CFO | Due diligence
In the high-stakes world of M&A deals , response times are not just a small operational detail; they’re a critical deal variable. When support is slow or absent, deals stall, bidders lose confidence, and real risk rises.
If you’re advising on a deal at 2 am, you know how damaging a poorly timed permissions error can be. Advisors scramble to keep deals on track and clients insulated from disruption, while small-to-medium-sized business CFO’s recognise that every slow response introduces risk — the kind that costs time, trust and sometimes the deal itself.
Ansarada reduces response risk through a global human support team available 24/7 via phone, email and live chat, combined with an extensive library of online support to resolve issues in minutes, not days.
This article lifts the lid on the hidden cost of slow support, examines persona-specific scenarios, and explains how Ansarada’s support model delivers measurable ROI.
The hidden cost of slow support in M&A deals
Slow support responses are not just an annoyance; they’re a critical problem that directly affects timelines, bidder confidence and valuation. Slow support looks like tickets that sit for hours or even days, generic, scripted answers that don’t resolve the urgent issue, and coverage in selected regions or within ‘business hours’.
Modern deal-flow doesn’t care about traditional hours, and support needs to be ready and equipped to provide dedicated care to solve complex issues. Because poor support costs deal teams more than patience, with a range of hidden costs:
- Lost Analyst hours: When uploads or permissions stall, deal teams lose predictive time.
- Extended M&A timelines : Delays can compound across diligence, Q&A and approvals.
- Bidder drop-off: Buyers interpret delays as disorganisation or risk, which can grind momentum to a halt.
- Reputational pressure: Advisors and CFOs take the heat internally and externally, which equates to higher stress and reputational damage.
Picture this: a critical access failure surfaces late on a Friday, and support coverage simply isn’t there. The seller is effectively frozen out for days, diligence stalls, and the buy-side interprets the silence as operational risk. When support reappears on Monday, bidder attention has moved on, and deal momentum is irreversibly broken. The transaction fails, and the seller is left not only without a deal but with damaged credibility that lingers well beyond this process.
Every minute, every hour and every day of delay has a price tag — senior time, advisory fees, increased costs, misallocated resources and even valuation.
What good looks like: Response time benchmarks for high-stakes deals
When millions are on the line, response times cannot afford to be measured in days. A serious VDR provider serving global organisations across critical M&A deals should deliver:
- Live chat measured in minutes, not hours.
- Calls answered within 2 rings.
- Email responses within a tight SLA (within half an hour).
- 24/7/365 coverage across time zones, with real humans, not just bots.
Deals never sleep, so why should customers support? Advisors work around the clock and require 24/7 coverage for cross-border deals and teams working across different time zones.
That’s why Ansarada’s response model is designed with three principles to match the rhythm of M&A deals, which rarely respect office hours:
- Global support teams in Sydney, London and Chicago, providing around-the-clock coverage, a ‘follow the sun’ model.
- Multiple support channels through phone, live chat, email, plus an extensive online help centre.
- Industry-leading SLA KPIs such as calls answered within 2 rings, 2-minute live chat and 30-minute email responses.
When minutes matter: Scenarios from real M&A deals
Response times impact Advisors and CFO’s differently, but the impact on the overall organisation remains the same. Poor response times damage M&A deal flows.
Analyst or Associate with a problem at 2 am
An Analyst needs to bulk upload documents for an important and fix a permissions issue before an Information Memorandum (IM) goes live, but the VDR they’re using behaves unexpectedly and crashes. The Analyst scrambles to fix the problem to meet a critical deadline.
❌ Legacy provider: Stuck in a ticket queue without human interaction or a clear wait time. The lack of response results in lost hours, which adds fees and a missed internal deadline that hurts their reputation.
✅ With Ansarada: Without needing to submit a ticket, they head straight to live chat and speak with a specialist Client Services Team Member in under 2 minutes. The permissions are fixed, documents are uploaded, and the IM is delivered on time. Analysts get back personal ROI in the form of better sleep, reduced stress and greater confidence that they’re no longer dealing with the bottleneck.
Boutique M&A Advisor reassuring a nervous seller
A seller’s board is reviewing bidder questions ahead of a critical call. Their advisor is running the process and managing the data room when an access issue surfaces.
❌ Legacy provider: The Advisor can’t get urgent support in time due to slow response queues. Instead of focusing on the deal, they’re fielding technical questions, offering explanations and trying to smooth things over with their client. Momentum stalls. The seller’s confidence starts to waver, and the advisor looks distracted rather than in control — not the impression you want during high-stakes transactions.
✅ With Ansarada: A real human picks up within two rings, and the issue is escalated instantly. Expert support staff answers quickly and with knowledge of M&A deals, rather than generic software. The Advisor now looks calm, competent and in control, leaving their reputation intact and is free to finish the call.
CFO is watching a M&A timeline slip
The CFO is tracking a live transaction against a tightly sequenced M&A timetable, with diligence, bidder engagement and signing milestones carefully mapped out. As the deal reaches its most time-sensitive phase, small technical delays begin to accumulate.
❌ Legacy provider: Support delays allow minor access and workflow problems to drag on. Bidder timelines drift, diligence stretches beyond its scheduled window, and legal advisory teams are forced to reshuffle calendars. The CFO is left to manage slippage rather than execution, while downstream milestones edge further out, increasing cost, risk, and exposure.
✅ With Ansarada: Around-the-clock expert support resolves issues in minutes, keeping bidders moving and milestones intact. With diligence under control and advisors aligned, the CFO can report against the agreed timeline with confidence, reinforcing execution certainty and protecting financial outcomes.
The CFO is dealing with repeated small delays in resolving technical issues, such as users not receiving invites, Q&A being stuck, and the audit trails being unclear. Tax season approaches, and it’s a mad scramble in the lead-up to key financial reporting dates.
❌ Legacy provider: Slow support increases uncertainty and erodes confidence in the transaction’s trajectory. This complicates integration planning and undermines financial forecasts that result in costly errors that impact reputation and add costs to hit deadlines.
✅ With Ansarada: Fast 24/7 support provides the CFO with stability, reduces uncertainty, allows for accurate planning, and communicates control to the board. Swift action helps to reduce costs while building up the CFO’s reputation.
How Ansarada’s VDR reduces support friction by design
The best support model not only fixes issues quickly but prevents them altogether.
An excellent VDR lowers the volume of “how do I” questions, thanks to Ansarada’s intuitive interface, which is designed for first-time deal participation. There are no plugins needed, and it works across current browsers and mobile devices to dramatically reduce any access issues.
When users don’t get stuck on basic usability questions, it frees support to handle high-stakes issues and time-critical problems that are most important.
Ansarada’s M&A deal platform has a range of additional features that complement our world-class support model:
- AI-driven tools such as AI Q&A routing, AI smart folder sorting, and AI document summaries reduce manual back-and-forth and help answer common questions faster.
- Real-time activity tracking and audit logs help resolve “what happened?” and “who clicked what?” queries quickly.
Calculating the ROI of fast response times in M&A deals
Fast support does more than just create a smooth experience; it delivers measurable returns across an organisation for Advisors and CFOs.
Cost
The most immediate ROI comes from avoided time loss across the deal team, and delays rarely stay at the analyst level. When issues linger, senior bankers, directors and CFOs are pulled in to keep deals moving.
In Australia, analysts typically earn around $120–$180k plus bonus, while Managing Directors can earn anywhere from $400k to over $1m, often with bonuses that exceed base salary.
If a five-person team loses three hours waiting on support, that’s 15 hours of high-cost senior time diverted from advancing the transaction.
Delay risk
A single day’s delay can push approvals back. If advisory costs are $2,000 a day, this equates to increased advisory costs and flow-on impacts on holding or financing expenses. Ansarasda’s commitment to solving issues in minutes, not hours, reduces the frequency of these delays to eliminate such losses.
Better bidder experience
When bidders wait for access or Q&A fixes, engagement fades and the risk of a deal falling through increases. By providing quick fixes and rapid support, bidders have a better experience, securing more deals and, importantly, building better relationships.
Whether you’re viewing the RIO through a cost, delay risk or better bidder experience lens, support is not just a nice-to-have; it is a lever to protect deal economics.
Choose support that matches the stakes
In M&A deals, response times affect timelines, bidder confidence and ultimately valuation — slow support is a deal risk that cannot be ignored.
Ansarada’s M&A-focused VDR delivers world-class 24/7 human support via phone, chat, and email, backed by a deep help library.
Run your next deal on a platform where support is measured in minutes, not days.
FAQS
Do response times really affect M&A deals?
Yes. Delays in resolving access, permissions and data issues ripple through the M&A timeline, affecting both the sell side and the buy side, plus close dates. Fast support keeps momentum intact and shows professionalism that improves reputation.
How does 24/7 support change the M&A timeline?
Around-the-clock coverage removes overnight or weekend bottlenecks. Advisors work around the clock, in different time zones, so support is critical to keep deals flowing in a global world.
What support does Ansarada offer during complex M&A deals?
Ansarada provides 24/7/365 global support via local numbers in major regions, live chat, email, and an online help centre with articles and video training.
How is Ansarada’s support different from legacy providers?
Speed, expertise and access to real humans, not chatbots. Ansarada provides real specialists experienced in M&A, capital raises or audits, so users can rest assured they’re not speaking to generic software support.
Is fast support still useful if our M&A deals are small?
Absolutely. Even smaller transactions are time-sensitive and reputation-sensitive. A single unresolved issue can derail a buyer or delay a deal close that can cost the organisation through lost resources, reputation damage and broken relationships.
