Building a Script with Business Hours and After Hours Call Handling
Whether you forward calls to SAS 24/7 or you just want to include some temporary holiday instructions, having the ability to automatically change your script depending on the day or time allows our agents to provide the most up-to-date information to your callers, and appropriately direct messages to your staff. For example, a plumber may want all messages that come in after hours to be sent to an on-call technician, whereas all messages that come in during business hours can be sent to their general mailbox.
In this article we'll discuss:
Before we begin, you'll need to create a business hours set. This will help tell the script what to do depending on the hours you've configured.
Using a Business Hours Set in Your Greeting
Once you have created your business hours set, you'll be able to add it into your script. This first option will allow us to tell the callers that the office is closed without changing the overall flow of the script. Essentially, we will let callers know the office is closed, but we will still handle calls as normal.
1
In your Greeting block, under the
Receptionist tab, choose
Business and after hours greeting as your Greeting type. Then, from the Business Hours dropdown, select the business hours set you've created, and fill in the Receptionist speech area accordingly.
2
Next, fill in the text for your After Hours greeting, which is what the agents will read to your callers after hours. You can also choose to activate a Lunch and/or Holiday greeting, as outlined below:
- Lunch Greeting: Once activated, the Lunch Greeting will show instead of your After Hours greeting on calls received during your Closed Between times.
- Holiday Greeting: Once activated, the Holiday Greeting will show instead of your After Hours greeting on calls received during any holidays you’ve associated with your business hours.
If you are using any of our call back features, you can also customize the greeting the operators will use when they call your customers back.
3
Continue editing your Greeting block as necessary. Once you are finished, click Save.
Creating a Workflow (Date Time) Block
We've already created the script sections that agents will follow if a call comes in during business hours or after hours. Now we need to create the script block that will tell the script when to switch.
1
Click on the
Builder icon on the left-hand navigation panel, and select
Blocks.
2
From the
Block templates list, locate and select the
Workflow (Date Time) block.
3
Under the
Options tab, select your Business Hours set from the dropdown list.
4
If you want to change your script based on specific date(s), day(s), specific time(s), specific dates and times, or date/day/time ranges, select the applicable option as shown in the picture below. Then, add your dates, days, or times accordingly.
5
The
Logic tab will show the system controlled function, which does not need to be edited. Finally, you'll need to name your block. We named ours
Business Hours vs. After Hours.
6
When you are finished creating your block, click
Save.
Creating a new Section for your Workflow (Date Time) block
Once your Workflow (Date Time) block has been created, you'll need to add it to its own script section.
1
Click on the
Builder icon on the left-hand navigation panel and select
Scripts.
2
On the next page, click on the Section Library tab. Then click
Add new section.
3
On the left side of your screen, locate your newly created
Workflow (Date Time) block and drag it over into the section builder.
4
Name your section, select a color (optional), and click
Save.
Depending on when you want the script to use the Workflow (Date Time) block, you may need to edit your current script sections by
adding Page Breaks or
Logic Options to point the script in the right direction.
Adding the New Section into the Script Workflow
Once your script block has been added to a new script section, it's time to incorporate the new section in your script.
1
Go to the
Builder icon on the left navigation panel, and select
Scripts. Then choose the script you wish to edit.
2
Once you've accessed your script, you will be taken to your workflow. In our example, we want to add our new Workflow (Date Time) block right after our greeting. Click on the
+ sign in the upper right-hand corner and click
Add Sections.
3
From the
Custom sections list, locate your newly created section.
4
Next, drag over your section, placing it near the
Main Greeting.
5
Link up the Greeting section to the BH vs. AH section, as shown below:
6
Next locate and drag over the the sections you want to follow the BH/AH section. In our example, we'll drag out our
After Hours and
Business Hours sections, placing them near the
BH vs. AH section.
7
Link the
Business Hours and
After Hours sections to the
BH vs. AH section, as shown below:
Once a script section is fully linked, the "caution triangle" icon will disappear.
8
After you've finished editing your script, don't forget to
Save your work!
If you have any scripting errors, the caution triangle will display a red number indicating how many errors there are. Clicking on the triangle will open up a window explaining the errors and how to fix them.
