Office hours and reply times help you set expectations for your customers when they start a conversation in the Messenger, but you may have different teams online at different times, so the expectations will be different. That’s where custom office hours can help. 

When the customer actually starts a conversation with you, Intercom runs the assignment rules to see which team their conversation will be assigned to, and based on the office hours you’ve set for that team, we confirm exactly when they should expect a response. Read on and find out how to set up office hours for your teams.

Go to Settings > General > Teams & roles.

Then, select a team, scroll down to Choose office hours and use the dropdown to select + New office hours.

Now, enter a name for this set of office hours, the timezone, and when they’ll be in effect:

Below the office hours setting, you can also define the reply time for each team to ensure you set accurate expectations for your customers, no matter which team will be answering their conversation.

If your team experience a high volume period due to an outage, a big promotion or an external event, this can lead to longer wait times for your customers.

Let them know with a special notice in your Messenger. 👌

While office hours can be set per team, you can also set workspace wide office hour and expected reply times.

To change your workspace settings, head over to Messenger Settings > General Settings > Office hours and reply times.

To edit a set of custom office hours, go to Settings > General > Office hours.

Hover over the custom office hours you've created and click the pencil icon to update the name, the scheduled hours, or the timezone.

Or, click Delete to remove the custom office hours. If you have any teams that use these hours, they'll be updated to your default office hours.