Business hours tell Commslayer when your team is available. You set them per inbox, on chat widget and email inboxes. With business hours on, customers who write while you are closed can get an automatic reply, and the chat widget shows that you are away.
Voice inboxes have their own business hours. See Voice integration settings.
Set business hours
- Go to Settings → Inboxes and click Manage on the inbox.
- In the Business hours card, tick Enable business availability for this inbox.
- Write an Unavailable message for visitors if you want an automatic reply while you are closed.
- Under Select timezone, pick your timezone. On an inbox where no timezone was saved before, the field shows Pacific Time (US & Canada), so check it before you save.
- Under Set your weekly hours, tick the days you work and pick a start and an end time for each. Tick All-Day for a day you are available around the clock. Days you leave unticked show as Unavailable.
- Click Save at the top right.
Each day has one time range, and it starts and ends on the same day. A lunch break or a shift that runs past midnight can't be entered.
Every inbox has its own hours and its own timezone. The Timezone under Settings → Account settings is not used here.
The unavailable message
When a customer writes outside your business hours, Commslayer answers with your Unavailable message for visitors.
- Chat widget inbox: the message appears in the chat, right after the customer's message.
- Email inbox: the message is sent to the customer as an email reply.
- How often: at most once per calendar day in each conversation. The day is counted in UTC, not in the inbox's timezone. If the conversation already got another automatic message that day, such as the email prompt in chat or a CSAT survey, the unavailable message isn't sent.
- Who gets it: any customer message that arrives outside your hours triggers it, in a new conversation or an existing one. It also goes to automated senders such as newsletters and notification emails that land in the inbox. Blocked senders don't get it.
- AI agent: the message is sent whether or not the AI agent is on for that inbox. If the AI agent answers customers there around the clock, leave the message empty.
Leave the field empty to use business hours without an automatic reply.
What isn't possible:
- Sending the message only on new conversations, or only when nobody has replied yet.
- A different message per day or per language. There is one message per inbox.
- An automation rule that checks the time. Rules have no condition for time of day or business hours. An acknowledgment that goes out at any hour is an automation rule on Conversation created with the action Send a message. See Using automations.
Holidays and days off
There is no holiday calendar and you can't close on a specific date. Business hours repeat every week.
For a public holiday or a day off:
- Before the day, open the Business hours card and untick that weekday.
- If you like, change the Unavailable message for visitors to say when you are back.
- Click Save.
- Tick the day again when you are back.
What the chat widget shows
The home screen of the chat widget shows a status. It depends on three things.
- The AI agent is on for the chat inbox: the widget always shows "We are online". Business hours don't change this.
- Business hours are on, no AI agent: the widget shows "We are online" during your hours, whether or not a team member is logged in. Outside your hours it shows "We are away at the moment".
- Business hours are off, no AI agent: the widget shows "We are online" only while at least one collaborator of that inbox is online in Commslayer. Otherwise it shows "We are away at the moment".
The reply time you picked under Features → Set reply time ("Typically replies in a few minutes", "in a few hours" or "in a day") shows below the status in every case. The widget doesn't show when you open again, so put that in your unavailable message.
Visitors can send a message at any time. Being away doesn't switch the chat off.
To collect a message through a form while you are closed, go to the Pre-chat form card, tick Enable pre-chat form and then Only show outside business hours. The second option appears once business hours are on for the inbox. Outside your hours the visitor fills in the form, clicks Leave a message and sees "Message sent. Thanks for reaching out. We'll get back to you as soon as we're online." instead of the chat. During your hours the chat opens without the form.
What else business hours change
- AI agent handover in chat: outside your business hours the AI agent doesn't treat anyone on your team as online when it hands over a chat. If nobody is online, it tells the customer you are outside business hours and that your team will follow up, and it asks for an email address if it doesn't have one.
- Reports: reports have a Business hours switch. With it on, first response time and resolution time count working hours only. See Understanding reports.
Common problems
The unavailable message wasn't sent
- Check that Enable business availability for this inbox is ticked and that Unavailable message for visitors isn't empty.
- Check Select timezone in the Business hours card. The hours are read in that timezone.
- The message goes out once per calendar day in each conversation. If the conversation already got an automatic message that day, such as the email prompt in chat or a CSAT survey, it isn't sent again.
- Click Save after every change. The button is at the top right of the page.
The widget says we are away while I'm online
Business hours are on and it is outside the hours you set, or the timezone in the Business hours card is not yours. With business hours on, the widget follows the schedule and ignores who is logged in.
The widget says we are online while nobody is working
Either the AI agent is on for that chat inbox, or business hours are on and it is inside the hours you set.