Setting Holiday Hours and Call Forwarding
Overview
Holiday closures can be set with a preselected set of 10 common United States (US) holidays using the Operation Hours setting. For any holidays not included in that list, you will need to set the closure manually.
How does it work?
An admin can configure:
Default holidays in the Operation Hours setting
Manually set operating hours for holidays not available in the default Operation Hours setting
During the holiday:
Call deflection steps are below
For more on after hours deflection settings see After Hour Deflection for Calls and Chats
Admin Configuration
Setting default holidays in Operation Hours
Please see Operation Hours{.linktype-component} for more info about selecting holidays for closure.
Go to Settings> Support Center Details.
Edit an existing Operation Hours option or create a new one (see Support Center Details - Hours of Operation Settings for more details).
Select the holidays on which your operation will be closed.
Click Apply to save changes.
Closures for holidays not available in default settings
If the holiday in which the operation is closed is not included in the default list, an admin will need to change the default operating hours and change the setting back once the holiday is over.
Go to Settings > Support Center Details.
Edit an existing default operating hours (see Support Center Details - Hours of Operation Settings{.linktype-component} for more details) by clicking on the edit icon.
Edit the days of the week in which the operation is open by un-checking the box for that day of the week.
Click Apply to save changes.
Revert the change at the end of the day or before opening hours the next day when the holiday is over.
After hours call settings - forward to a number
Go to Settings > Call.
Enable After Hour Deflection.
Scroll down to either the IVR Calls or Mobile & Web CallsAfter-Hours Deflection section.
Select Forward to Number and enter the phone number to which calls should be forwarded.
Click Set Caller Announcements to save.
Components
Reporting
- Calls deflected during holidays will not show in reports.
API
- When a call deflects during a holiday, After Hours voicemail, phone number deflection, and After Hours message, API responses are available for reporting.
Support Center Details - General Settings
Overview
The general settings cover the basic naming and email settings for your environment.
Support Center Details Setup
Go to Settings > Support Center Details.
Support Center Name: Support name displayed on your CCAI Platform account.
Display Name: Support name displayed in your Mobile and Web SDKs.
Support Email Address: Email address used when using Mobile SDKs and Web SDK email deflection options by default.
Email address used can be set per-queue using the Integrated Email Form for Mobile and Web SDKs feature.
Click Apply to Saves changes.
Support Center Details - Hours of Operation Settings
Overview
Settings are available to configure default operation hours and individual settings that may be configured based on Queue, channel, language, time of day, days of the week, or selected holidays.
Once a call or chat is initiated outside of the set hours for the selected queue, what happens to that chat/call depends on your after hour deflection settings. If your queues are not set to 24-hours, be sure to enable After Hour Deflection.
An admin can configure:
General Hours as a global default configuration controlling the days and hours during which your operation is open
Optional Custom Operation settings to override the default settings based on Queue, channel, language or entry point (Mobile or Web)
General hours of operation configuration
The General Operation Hours setting will be used as the default setting for your environment. If the hours for a particular entry point or queue are different, create a new custom setting, as shown below.
Go to Settings > Support Center Details.
Click the edit (pencil) icon to edit the general hours.
Choose the correct timezone. Time zone is used for Operation Hours and Deflection Settings.
Select your support center operation days.
24 Hour Operation: For operations that are always open. Since the operation is always open, no daily hour settings will be shown.
Weekdays/Weekends: To be used for operations where the weekday hours stay the same all week and differ for weekend days. One time of day setting for Weekdays and one time of day setting for weekend days will be available for configuration.
S/M/T/W/T/F/S: To be used if you have different hours on various days of the week. 7 hours settings for each day will be available for configuration.
If not using 24-hour operation, input the hours for each day.
Mark off the holidays your support center is closed. On selected holidays your After Hour deflection settings will be used. For other holidays not listed, see Setting Holiday Hours and Call Forwarding{.linktype-component} for more information.
Click Apply to save.
Custom hours and queue settings
For all other specific hours based on Language selected, Entry point used to access CCAI Platform, or even specific queues, a new custom Operation Hour will need to be created.
Click Add Custom Operation Hours.
Name the operation hour setting (for internal use).
Click Next.
Choose the correct timezone for support center operations. Timezone is used for Operation Hours and Deflection Settings.
Select the Days and Hours of Operation setting, then the hours of operation per day.
Mark the checkboxes next to the holidays for this custom operating hour setup. On selected holidays, your After Hour deflection settings will be used. For other holidays not listed, see Setting Holiday Hours and Call Forwarding{.linktype-component} for more information.
Click Next.
Select the Entry Points that will inherit the custom hours per queue.
Select from the available channels - call or chat.
Select any languages that custom hours are associated with.
To select a specific queue or set of queues, Search for the name of the queue, then click Assign.
You can bulk select any assigned entry points and click Delete to delete them.
Or for individual edits,Delete can be used to remove a single entry point.
Click Finish to save.
IVR After Hour settings at the queue level
This option allows for you to set what options should be presented to the consumer when the queue is out of hours.
Configure after hour settings and messages at the queue level
Go to Settings > Queue.
Click Edit / View in the IVR panel.
Click on a queue to edit settings.
Scroll to the Custom After Hour Message Deflection section and toggle On.
Use the radio button to select from the following options:
Message: Message will play, then end the call. Toggle on to use default message set in Settings > Call or toggle Custom Greeting On to enter a Text-to-speech message or upload an audio recording.
Deflect to a Queue: search for the name of the queue, then select from the list of options presented.
Phone Number: Redirect callers after hours to a set phone number. Additional charges for call time apply.
Voicemail: Enables voicemail for this queue with an option for a custom voicemail greeting for this queue.
Mobile After Hours Messages and Custom options
For implementation contact Support.
Enable custom after hours settings
Go to Settings > Support Center Details.
Click On to toggle messages on.
To set the default messages, see Mobile and Web SDK Messages{.linktype-component .linktextconsumer} for further details and examples.
Configure after hours settings and messages at the queue level
Go to Settings > Queue.
Click Edit / View in the Mobile panel.
Click on a queue to edit settings.
Scroll to the Custom After Hour Message Deflection Options Mobile section and toggle On.
Use the radio button to select Deflect to a Queue, or Deflection Options.
Deflect to a Queue: search for the name of the queue, then select from the list of options presented.
Deflection Options: mark the checkboxes next to the channels you would like presented the end-user when accessing the queue after hours.
Toggle Display After Hour Deflection Message to On to enable.
Use the global after hour message set in Languages & Messages, or set a custom message by selecting Use custom after hour message and entering the message you would like displayed.
Click Set Custom After our Options to save.