Business Hours determine when your contact center is considered open to receive incoming calls.
Calls that arrive outside of business hours are either redirected to voicemail or ended with a custom message, based on your configuration.
What Are Business Hours?
Business Hours are configured using a Work Schedule — a predefined set of working days and hours aligned to a specific time zone.
Each work schedule includes:
- A selected Time Zone
- Working hours for each day of the week (e.g., Monday to Friday, 9 AM – 6 PM)
- Optional off days (e.g., weekends or public holidays, if configured)
How It Works
When a call is received:
- During Business Hours:
The call is routed through the normal flow — queued, notified to agents, etc.
- Outside Business Hours:
- If voicemail is enabled, the caller is directed to leave a voicemail.
- If voicemail is disabled, a greeting(as configured) is played and the call is ended.
This ensures that callers have a clear experience even when your team is unavailable.
Configuring Business Hours
- Create a Work Schedule
- Go to the Work Schedules section in your automate settings.
- Select the relevant time zone.
- Define the working hours for each day of the week.
- Assign Business Hours to a Phone Number
- Navigate to Phone Settings.
- Select the desired phone number.
- Under the Business Hours section, choose the applicable Work Schedule.
Each phone number can have its own business hours configuration based on your operational needs.
Best Practices
- Ensure your voicemail settings and custom messages are configured correctly to handle after-hours calls gracefully.
- Review your time zone selection to make sure it's accurate for your support region.
- Use different work schedules for different regions if you're handling calls across multiple time zones.