Guide
Handling after-hours calls
Decide who or what answers when the office is closed, make sure the caller learns when to expect a reply, and work through the night's calls first thing the next business day. The right setup depends on how many calls come in after hours and what those callers need.
Find out what comes in after hours
Before you change anything, look at your phone system's call log for the past few weeks. Count calls that arrived outside office hours and note whether callers left voicemails. Sort what you can into a few groups:
- new customers asking for an estimate;
- booked customers with a question about their move;
- customers on a move that is happening right now;
- vendors, job seekers and sales calls.
The mix tells you what you need. A few estimate requests a week calls for something different from a steady stream of customers whose crew is running late.
Your options
Voicemail
Costs nothing and is easy to set up. The drawback: some callers hang up instead of leaving a message, and the messages you do get may lack the details you need to call back with a useful answer.
If you use voicemail, record a greeting that:
- says your company name;
- gives your office hours;
- asks for name, number, move date and the towns they're moving between;
- says when you return calls, and keep that promise.
An on-call staff member
Forwarding calls to a manager's cell gives callers a real person who knows the business. It works for low volumes. It wears people out when calls come every evening, and calls still go unanswered when that person is driving, asleep or on a job.
A live answering service
Outside operators answer from a script you provide, take messages and can reach your on-call person for urgent calls. Quality depends on the script and on how well the operators know moving. Read our comparison of answering services and AI receptionists.
An AI call handler
Software answers the call, responds to common questions from information you supply, and records the caller's details. It suits estimate requests well, because those follow a predictable set of questions. Anything it can't handle should go to a person, and the software should say so rather than guess.
Separate urgent calls from the rest
Most after-hours calls can wait for morning. A customer whose move is underway, or whose crew hasn't arrived, cannot. Whatever setup you choose, give urgent callers a way to reach a person: a separate number, a menu option, or rules that send move-day calls to your on-call manager.
What every after-hours caller should hear
- Which company they reached
- That the office is closed, and its hours
- When they can expect a reply
- What to do if their move is happening now
What to capture from estimate callers
Get enough that the morning callback can start with a plan instead of a list of questions: name, number, move date, both towns, home size, and anything unusual such as stairs or a piano. Our estimate-call checklist has the full set.
The morning routine
- Pull every call, voicemail and message from the night before into one list.
- Handle move-day and booked-customer issues first.
- Call back estimate requests next, starting with the nearest move dates.
- For callers you can't reach, leave a message and send a text or email if they agreed to one.
- Note any question you couldn't answer from what was captured, and fix the greeting, script or information that caused it.
Promise only what you can keep
"We'll call you first thing tomorrow" builds trust only if it happens. Set the reply time you tell callers by what your office can actually do on its busiest morning, not its quietest.