Business Hours & After-Hours Routing
Decide when your phones ring, and where callers go when you're closed — voicemail, an AI phone agent, or another queue.
Created: September 16, 2026
Updated: September 16, 2026
Overview
Hours can be set in three places:
- Main line — your organization's business hours, used by the default number (and optionally by hunt groups and queues).
- Hunt groups — main hours, custom hours, or 24/7.
- Call queues — 24/7, organization hours, or custom hours.
All hours use your organization's time zone. Holidays aren't supported yet — change the hours or after-hours handling for closures.
Set Your Time Zone
Go to CRM → Admin → Team Settings → Time Zone and choose your organization's time zone. If none is set, Pacific Time (America/Los_Angeles) is used. The Business Hours section shows this time zone read-only.
Main Line Hours
- Go to CRM → Admin → Phone Settings → Settings and set a Default Phone Number.
- Under Business Hours, turn on Enforce business hours.
- Set Start and End (default 9:00–17:00). An end time earlier than the start runs overnight.
- Tick the Days you're open (default Monday–Friday).
- Choose After-hours handling. Changes save automatically ("Business hours saved").
After-Hours Handling
| Option | Setup |
|---|---|
| AI Phone Agent | Pick the After-hours AI Phone Agent. After hours, the default number is handed to the agent, then back to your team when you open. If calls keep ringing your team after hours, click Re-apply after-hours routing. |
| Voicemail | Click Set Up Greeting to create the after-hours greeting, then set who gets the messages in Voicemail notification emails (primary plus up to 10 CC). See Voicemail. |
Hunt Group Hours
Open the group in Phone Settings → Hunt Groups, choose under Business Hours, and click Save:
- Use main business hours (default) — follows the main line's hours.
- Custom hours for this group — set Start, End, and Days, then After hours, route to Voicemail (the group's greeting) or AI Phone Agent.
- Always ring (24/7).
The AI Phone Agent option for a hunt group only works when the group's number is your organization's default line. For other numbers, use Voicemail.
Set the group's greeting and Notification email in its Voicemail box. See Hunt Groups.
Queue Hours
In the queue editor's Business hours section, set Open to:
- 24/7 (default)
- Organization business hours
- Custom hours — start, end, and days in your organization's time zone
Then choose After hours, send callers to: Voicemail, An AI phone agent (the agent needs a phone number), Another queue, or Hang up. Closed-queue callers skip the hold line and show as After hours in reports. See Call Queues.
Comparison
| Main line | Hunt group | Queue | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours options | On/off | Main, custom, 24/7 | 24/7, organization, custom |
| Voicemail | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI phone agent | ✓ | Default line only | ✓ |
| Another queue | — | — | ✓ |
| Hang up | — | — | ✓ |
| Saves | Automatically | Save button | Save button |
Tips
- Mention your hours in the after-hours greeting so callers know when to call back.
- Place a test call just after closing time to confirm routing.
- Check the time zone first — most "wrong hours" problems are a time zone mismatch.