How to Set Business Hours in LeadLocate

The phone should ring the floor when the floor is there, and take a message when it is not. Business hours are the switch between the two.

1. Open the phone settings

   In the desktop CRM open Account Settings, then My Account Settings, and choose Phone & IVR. The IVR Settings page holds the Virtual Receptionist and everything about how inbound calls are handled.

2. Find the hours

   Under Call Handling click Edit Hours. A new account shows Open 24 hours switched on, which means every call is treated as a business hours call.

3. Set each day

   Switch off Open 24 hours and set the open and close time for each day of the week. Mark a day closed if the store is dark that day. Use the hours the phone should ring the floor, which are usually the showroom hours, not the service hours.

4. Pick the time zone

   Choose the store's zone, Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii or Arizona. Hours are read in this zone, so a wrong zone shifts every call by an hour or more.

5. Decide what happens after hours

   Under After Hours choose the handling for calls outside the hours: Company Voicemail with a Greeting you record in the browser or add with Upload Greeting, or an Answering Service number if the store uses one. Save the page.

6. Test it

   Call your tracking number from a cell phone during hours and confirm it rings the floor, then call again after close, or set the close time to five minutes from now, and confirm you reach the after hours handling. Put the real close time back.

You need to be the Master Administrator or a Manager, because Account Settings is theirs. Have the store's real showroom hours for each day, the time zone, and a decision about after hours: voicemail, or a messaging service with a number to hand calls to. If you plan to record the voicemail greeting yourself, do it from a quiet office; the recorder runs in the browser and takes about a minute.

It helps to know how your inbound calls flow before you set the hours. Calls to the tracking numbers ring the users on the Forward Calls To list, and the Virtual Receptionist can answer first with press 5 call screening. Business hours sit underneath both: they decide whether a call is a business hours call at all. The call forwarding and ring lists page explains who rings and in what order.

During the hours you set, a call to a tracking number rings the floor the way it did before. After close, the caller hears the company voicemail greeting or is handed to the answering service number you entered, and the store is not ringing an empty showroom. Each call, including the after hours ones, appears in Call Logs and in the customer's communications log, and a voicemail left after close is on the lead in the morning with its recording and transcript, so the first call of the day goes back to the customer who called last night.

Every call is also written to the LeadLocate CRM lead record whatever the hour, so a manager can see how many calls arrive after close and decide whether the hours, or the staffing, need to move.

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Calls still ring through after close. Open 24 hours is still on, or the time zone is wrong. Open Edit Hours, confirm the switch is off and each day has a close time, and check the zone matches the store. Then look at Call Handling on the same page: hours are read by the receptionist flow, so if the Virtual Receptionist and After Hours settings are not what you expect, correct them there.

Callers hear nothing after close. After Hours is set to voicemail but no greeting exists. Record one under Greeting or add a file with Upload Greeting, and listen to it once before saving.

Customers book visits for hours the store is closed. Those are booking hours, not business hours, and they are set separately on the calendar. The appointment booking links page shows where; the guide to setting your booking link walks through the grid.

Once the hours are right, turn on the Virtual Receptionist if you want calls screened before they ring, and record the per user voicemail greetings so an after hours call to a rep's number sounds like the rep. Set the calendar booking hours to match, or deliberately not match, the phone hours. The help center lists every guide, including the one for turning on the Virtual Receptionist, and the tracking phone numbers page explains the numbers the hours apply to.

Set the close time fifteen minutes after the doors lock, because the last customer of the day calls back from the parking lot. Keep Sunday closed if nobody is there, rather than open with no one answering; a voicemail with a promise to call back at nine beats eight rings. And when the store changes to holiday hours, change them here the same day; the phone does not read the sign on the door.

Where are business hours set in LeadLocate CRM?

Under Account Settings, My Account Settings, Phone & IVR. On the IVR Settings page, Edit Hours under Call Handling holds the weekly hours, the Open 24 hours switch and the time zone; After Hours holds what happens outside them.

What is the default for a new account?

Open 24 hours, with the Virtual Receptionist off, so every call rings the Forward Calls To list until you set real hours. Switch Open 24 hours off and set each day to change that.

Are booking hours the same as business hours?

No. Business hours govern the phone. Booking hours govern the times a customer can pick on your booking link and are set per calendar in the calendar Settings popup, so a store can take bookings for hours that differ from when the phone is answered.

What happens to a call after hours?

It follows the After Hours handling you chose: the company voicemail greeting, with the recording and transcript on the lead in the morning, or the answering service number you entered. Either way the call is logged.

Schedule Training from the top bar of the CRM and a trainer sets the hours and greeting with you on a screen share, or watch the pre-recorded live demo first.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.