After-hours coverage without a night shift

When to use this

You don't have a night-shift estimator. Your insurance desk closes at 5pm. Customers who got into a fender-bender on the way home from work are calling at 7pm and leaving voicemails that get processed Tuesday morning — by which point three of them already booked with a competitor.

How it's wired

1. You give us your hours of operation per day. The intake form has a per-day field.
2. We configure the after-hours window for the AI assistant.
3. You set scheduled call-forwarding on your line (most modern systems support time-of-day rules; older systems use a manual nightly toggle).
4. Calls between close and open route to our forwarding number; daytime stays on your existing flow.

Greeting tone

After-hours scripts get a slightly different opener: "Thanks for calling [shop] — our office is closed for the day, and I'm the AI assistant. I can take down the basics and have an estimator follow up first thing in the morning." We tune this in step 3 of the onboarding wizard or via /admin/config.

Validation

1. Call your number after close. Confirm the AI picks up with the after-hours opener.
2. Call your number during business hours. Confirm a human still answers.
3. Check /admin/calls the next morning — the after-hours call should be there with the transcript.

Tuning

• Holiday hours: Tell us the dates; we adjust the schedule on the assistant.
• Emergency escalation: If a caller mentions injuries, the AI redirects to "hang up and dial 911." This is hard-coded — not an option.
• Photo upload: The AI asks if the caller wants an SMS link to upload damage photos. Default-on; turn off in /admin/integrations if you don't want that path.