What is after-hours support?
After-hours support is the help customers get outside your business hours: in the evening, at night, at weekends and on holidays. Businesses provide it with on-call staff, an outsourced team, or an AI agent that answers and leaves the rest for the team.
Also called: 24/7 customer support, out-of-hours support, evening and weekend support.
By Santhul Joseph, AI EngineerUpdated
Ways to cover the hours you're closed
- An auto-reply that says when you're back. Cheap, but the customer still waits.
- On-call or shift staff. Real answers, paid as extra hours.
- An outsourced support team. Covers the hours, but they need training on your business.
- An AI agent that answers from your own content around the clock and leaves what it can't handle for your team.
Why it matters
Customers write when it suits them. A parent asks a dental clinic about appointments after the kids are in bed; a shopper checks the return policy on Sunday evening. A question that waits until Monday can mean a booking or a sale that went somewhere else.
After-hours support in SimplyBoost
- The agent answers on your website, WhatsApp and Instagram at any hour, from your own website pages and documents, in the language the customer writes in.
- It can book a meeting at a time you're free in Google Calendar, and collect contact details after it has helped.
- Conversations that need a person are handed over with the full conversation, and your team is alerted by email, in the dashboard or in Slack.
- It's on every plan, Starter included.
Questions people ask
Do I need staff online at night if I use an AI agent?
No. The agent answers the common questions and books meetings on its own. Anything that needs a person is handed over, and your team picks it up during working hours with the whole conversation in front of them.
What does the customer see when nobody is available?
In SimplyBoost's website chat, a customer who is handed over sees that a person will join, with your typical response time. On WhatsApp and Instagram they get a short message that your team has it.
Can the agent capture leads at night?
Yes. Lead capture works at any hour: the agent collects contact details during the conversation, after it has helped, and the lead is in your Leads list the next morning.