Setting Your Business Hours
The Hours stage is the third step in Receptionist Setup.
This stage tells Cognivox your normal business opening and closing hours.
Your AI receptionist can use this information during conversations to understand whether your business is currently open or closed.
Why business hours are important
Your Cognivox AI receptionist may be available to answer calls 24 hours a day, even when your business itself is closed.
Business hours allow the receptionist to distinguish between:
- The AI receptionist being available
- Your business being open
- Your business being closed
- Employees potentially being unavailable outside normal working hours
This helps Cognivox provide more appropriate responses to callers.
Configure each day
Business hours are configured individually for each day of the week.
The setup includes:
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
For each day, specify whether your business is open or closed.
Setting opening and closing times
For a normal working day, enter:
- Opening Time
- Closing Time
For example:
Opening Time: 09:00
Closing Time: 17:00
This tells Cognivox that the business normally operates between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM on that day.
Configure the actual hours your business normally operates rather than the hours during which the AI receptionist is available.
Closed days
If your business does not normally operate on a particular day, mark that day as Closed.
For example, if your business operates Monday to Friday, you might configure:
- Monday — Open
- Tuesday — Open
- Wednesday — Open
- Thursday — Open
- Friday — Open
- Saturday — Closed
- Sunday — Closed
You do not need to enter opening and closing times for a day that is marked as closed.
Lunch breaks
If your business closes for a regular lunch break or another scheduled period during the working day, enable the lunch-break option where required.
You can then specify:
- Lunch Start
- Lunch End
For example:
Lunch Start: 12:30
Lunch End: 13:30
Only configure a lunch break if the business is genuinely unavailable during that period.
If your business remains open while individual employees take lunch breaks, you would normally leave the business lunch-break option disabled.
Different hours on different days
Your opening hours do not need to be the same every day.
For example:
- Monday — 09:00 to 17:00
- Tuesday — 09:00 to 17:00
- Wednesday — 09:00 to 17:00
- Thursday — 09:00 to 19:00
- Friday — 09:00 to 16:00
- Saturday — 10:00 to 13:00
- Sunday — Closed
Configure each day to reflect how your business actually operates.
What happens outside business hours?
Cognivox can continue answering telephone calls when your business is closed.
The receptionist can use your configured business hours to recognise that the business is currently closed and handle the enquiry according to your receptionist configuration.
Depending on the features and instructions configured for your business, this could include:
- Answering questions
- Providing company information
- Taking caller details
- Taking a message
- Handling supported appointment enquiries
- Explaining that the business is currently closed
- Arranging appropriate follow-up
The receptionist should not imply that your physical business or employees are currently available simply because the AI receptionist has answered the call.
Business hours and appointments
Business opening hours and employee appointment availability are related but are not necessarily the same thing.
An employee's actual availability may depend on:
- Their appointment configuration
- Their working arrangements
- Their connected calendar
- Existing appointments
- Other availability information
Cognivox should check the appropriate availability information before offering or confirming an appointment.
Business hours alone should not be treated as confirmation that a particular employee is available.
Keep your hours accurate
Accurate business hours are important because callers may ask questions such as:
- Are you open today?
- What time do you close?
- Are you open on Saturday?
- When do you open tomorrow?
- Is anyone available now?
Make sure the hours entered into Cognivox reflect your normal operating hours.
Temporary and exceptional closures
The business hours configured during setup represent your normal weekly operating pattern.
Do not permanently change your normal hours solely to represent a one-off closure unless you intend the new hours to remain in effect.
Examples of exceptional changes might include:
- Public holidays
- Christmas and New Year closures
- Staff training days
- Emergency closures
- Special opening hours
Where Cognivox provides separate functionality for exceptional or temporary opening arrangements, use that functionality rather than replacing your normal weekly hours.
Review your business hours
Before continuing, check:
- Every day of the week has been reviewed.
- Opening times are correct.
- Closing times are correct.
- Non-working days are marked as closed.
- Lunch breaks are configured only where required.
- The hours represent your business rather than the availability of the AI receptionist.
Continue to the next stage
When you are satisfied with your business hours, select Continue.
Your business hours will be saved and you can proceed to the Instructions stage, where you will tell Cognivox how your receptionist should handle enquiries specific to your business.