Do you have customers that contact you during out of hours and even though your team immediately responds once they clock in, your customers may be dissatisfied at the wait time? Not to mention, your first response times and resolution times are simply inaccurate because your team was offline. 

Or, you may offer multiple levels of support, which is great for your customers, but you can't effectively track or bill for the additional service because you can’t accurately report on your operational hours. 

Well, now you can.

Teamwork Desk has just introduced Business Hours. We know that getting the right metrics on how your business is performing can be difficult when you can’t accurately report on your working week. Your team may not work 24/7, so you should not be basing your metrics on a 24/7 week. With the introduction of Business Hours, you can:

  • Easily report on your business’s exact operational hours

  • Accurately report on how quickly your team respond to and resolve issues

  • Offer different paid service levels and increase your recurring revenue

  • Manage client expectations on response times for when they contact you out of hours by setting realistic time frames - simply include the business hours variable in your canned responses and auto-replies so customers know when your team will be able to address their request.

  • Automatically set replies to send when the office is closed or your staff are on holidays (no need to turn on/off auto-reply)

Within Teamwork Desk you can create custom groups of business hours for your site and then utilize them through triggers and variables. The initial set of business hours created are automatically applied to all new tickets as your default business hours. If additional business hours are created, you will need to set up triggers to apply any additional schedules.

To activate your operational business hours, go to your Teamwork Desk settings and navigate to the General tab. From here select Business Hours from the left navigation menu and click Create business hours. 

You can then allocate a name and a time zone to your default business hours. Next, select the Custom option and select the appropriate days and times that apply specifically to your business. Here you can also set holiday dates that will override the business hours set on those days. 

Once you create and apply your business hours, they will be added to the list of existing business hours on your site. You also have the option to change your default settings and apply it to hours currently not set as default.

To identify the number of triggers currently using a certain schedule, navigate to the Triggers column which will display a count of the total number of triggers. By clicking a trigger you can then go directly to the trigger's settings. 

The variables used within these triggers enable you to share accurate business hours for your inbox or team set up, ensuring customers who contact you outside of your default hours get an appropriate canned response or the ticket is escalated if needed.

You can utilize your custom business hours in triggers, canned responses, and auto-replies.

Each set of business hours created for your site will have a corresponding unique ID. This ID will be used as the reference point in canned responses and auto-replies in any instances where you want to include business hours.

When creating canned responses or auto-replies, simply click the Insert Variable option in the editor and select Business Hours from the dropdown list of variables. The business hours variable will be added to the editor. Highlight the section referencing the business hours ID and add the business hours relevant ID. Now your customers will quickly be informed of the operational hours for your business and get greater clarity on your projected response time.  

In addition to canned responses and auto-replies you can also use business hours in conditions and actions when creating triggers for your inboxes. It’s important to remember that the first set of business hours created are automatically applied to all new tickets and if additional business hours are created, you will need to set up triggers to apply those schedules.

In the Conditions section of your trigger, business hours can be used with the ticket Creation date condition and, from here you can choose from a variety of business hours condition types such as within/not within business hours and is/is not on holidays. And in the Action section of your triggers, you can also use business hours by setting the action to Apply Business Hours.

Using the business hours in the creation section of your trigger to escalate and notify agents about important tickets is invaluable for companies who offer out of hours support. Now, you can ensure your clients receive a prompt response and you can bill for these additional levels of support.

Business Hours is now available for Premium and Enterprise Teamwork Desk customers so be sure to use this to your full advantage.

So far I love the Business Hours feature. It has really helped us get a more accurate picture of the amount of time tickets are outstanding.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, let us know in the comments section below or contact us at desk@teamwork.com.: