Separate answering hours from service availability
An AI agent can answer while your office is closed, but that does not mean a technician is available. Decide whether the after-hours route collects requests, offers supported future appointments, or transfers a defined class of calls to an on-call person.
Set the phone-system schedule in the system that owns the business number. In Company info, use After-hours instructions to explain what the agent should say and do. The current wizard's text field is not a carrier schedule editor.
Write an explicit closed-office policy
Include normal office days and hours, time zone, holiday exceptions, the next-business-day process and any approved on-call conditions. State when the agent must avoid promising a same-night visit or a callback deadline.
Office hours: [days and hours], [time zone].
When closed: collect the caller's service need and required contact details. Explain that [approved team/process] will review the request [realistic time window].
On-call handoff: use the configured office destination only for [approved situations].
Do not promise immediate dispatch, a technician arrival time or an unconfirmed appointment.Replace bracketed placeholders with your approved business information.
Replace the placeholders with real policies. If there is no on-call service, say so directly rather than leaving the agent to infer one.
Match holiday and boundary behavior
Update both the saved business information and the actual phone-system schedule when hours change. Test a call just before closing, after closing and after reopening. Confirm the time zone used by the schedule; the customer's phone location is not an adequate substitute.
For a temporary holiday arrangement, document its start, end and owner. Remove temporary knowledge when it no longer applies. A permanent FAQ should not continue quoting a holiday callback window after normal service resumes.
Handle urgent situations appropriately
Use your company's approved safety and escalation language. Distinguish an urgent service request from immediate danger. Do not use AI answering as emergency dispatch or instruct callers to perform hazardous troubleshooting. Direct immediate danger to the appropriate emergency services before ordinary intake.
Test a human handoff when the on-call destination answers and when it does not. Keep a fallback that captures the request without implying that an unanswered transfer reached a technician.
Review the morning handoff
Assign someone to inspect overnight requests, failed transfers and unresolved outcomes before the first dispatch. Check the saved concern and contact details, then use your approved contact workflow. Reconcile appointments against the CRM before creating new ones.
Peak Times can show calls by local hour. The current analytics does not retroactively label historical calls as after-hours from today's free-form office instructions. Use the documented schedule and call timestamps for a manual review instead of treating unavailable historical classification as zero activity.