Prepare to Use Business Hours

It would help if you did some preparation before you start using Business Hours. We recommend you do the following first:

1. Learn about Rules. Review Actions you can make based on your Business Hours setting.
2. Set up Answers if you’d like to customize auto-replies based on your Business Hours setting.
3. Remember that Business Hours only works for Messaging Channels (except Chat) and Email.
4. Read about SLA Business Hours and decide to configure your contact center’s primary operating hours.

Rule ‘Actions’ based on operating hours #

Review the Rules Actions list to understand what you can automate based on your Business Hour settings. Check out some of the scenarios below.

Send auto-reply during non-operating hours

It’s the July 4th holiday weekend, and a Customer just purchased a purse you have on sale. They have a follow-up question regarding delivery, and they text you Monday, which is a holiday for your company. If Business Hours show that you’re closed that day, it can send an auto-reply via Rules containing an Answer about deliveries with a note that you’ll get back to them during normal operating hours.

Redirect to another Inbox

You have a night shift and a day shift for your contact center. If you’d like to route all SMSes received outside your normal day shift operating hours, then use Business Hours and Rules to assign those SMSes to your night shift Inbox.

Create a Task

Let’s say you have a process where you handle urgent email requests with priority. If the email subject contains the word “urgent” and is received outside of your normal operating hours, then you can create a Task using Rules so it’s assigned to your Escalation Inbox so the email can be treated with priority.

Decide which auto-reply messages to use #

You can set auto-replies (except Glad App/chat and IVR) for messages received during or outside your operating hours. These messages are configured as Answers.

Auto-replies can be customized (using Rule Actions) when Business Hours is configured, and you can customize your messaging based on when an email or SMS is received.

Below are sample auto-replies by Channel.