Answering Hours

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Overview

By default your agent answers around the clock. You can instead define the time slots when it should answer, and decide what happens to calls that arrive outside them: forward them to another number, or play a message and end the call. Everything is set from the Voice Agents page, button Availability & forwarding.

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Answering slots

Turn on the answering schedule, pick your timezone, then add one or more slots per day. A day with no slot is a day your agent does not answer. Slots are checked in the timezone you select, not in the caller’s, so a call from abroad follows your local opening hours.

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Outside those slots

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Forwarding

Give the number that should receive the calls. Supported destinations are France, Canada, Switzerland, Romania and Belgium; Swiss and Belgian mobiles are not available for this mode. By default the forwarded call stays visible in Tala, with its recording, transcript and summary. You can switch to a direct forward, which keeps none of them. When the call is recorded, you are responsible for telling your callers.

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Message

Write what the caller should hear, up to 600 characters. Something like:

Hello, our workshop is closed. We welcome you Monday to Friday from 10am to 7pm, please call back during those hours.

The message is read out loud, then the call ends. Nothing is recorded and no voicemail is offered, so callers are not left waiting for a call back you never promised. The message is prepared when you save your settings, so callers never wait for it. If you change the wording, give it a few seconds before testing.

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Exceptional closures

Holidays and time off do not require editing your weekly slots and putting them back afterwards. Add a closure with a start and an end date, both included, and an optional message of its own. On those dates your agent does not answer, even during your usual slots, and the call is handled with the option you chose above. If you forward your calls, they are forwarded on those dates too. If you play a message, the closure message is played instead of the regular one, and leaving it empty reuses the regular one. Closures cannot overlap, and a closure can cover a single day.

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What callers and you see

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Good to know

• The schedule applies to the whole organization, so it covers every number you have.
• Turning the schedule off brings you back to answering around the clock.
• Days with special hours, such as open but only 10am to 2pm on a given date, are not covered yet: closures are full days.