Find out how to streamline your global service team to deliver exceptional customer experience.
Managing out-of-hours availability and routing is crucial for maintaining efficient customer support, especially if your company operates across different time zones.
Let’s say your headquarters is in the US, but you have customer service representatives in the UK. Coordinating working hours and availability across time zones can be challenging, but HubSpot’s Service Hub makes it easier.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up your out-of-hours routing.
Setting up working hours:
- Log in to HubSpot.
- Click on the settings icon located at the top right corner of the dashboard.
- In the left sidebar, under Account Setup, select Users & Teams.
- Click on the user for whom you want to make changes. For instance, select your UK-based rep.
- In the top navigation bar of the user’s settings, click on Preferences.
- On the left-hand side menu, select Working Hours.
- Ensure the time zone for the user is set correctly to reflect their local time, e.g., set to GMT for your UK-based rep.
- You can now set out-of-office periods in advance for holidays such as Christmas or bank holidays. You can also set out-of-office periods when the user’s holiday is approved.
Managing inbox availability:
From the main navigation, go to CRM and then select Inbox. In the inbox, it should show the user's out-of-office status in the top left corner. You can update the user's availability by adjusting their working hours, which will reflect their out-of-office status.
When managing and assigning tickets in the inbox, you will be able to see if a user is away and for how long.
- Assign Tickets Based on Availability:
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- If a user is out of office for a short period (e.g., until 5 PM), you can assign tickets with longer SLAs accordingly.
- If a user is out for an extended period (e.g., 10 days), you should reassign the ticket to another available team member to ensure timely responses.
Example Scenario
Imagine your US headquarters operates from 9 AM to 5 PM EST, but your UK reps work from 9 AM to 5 PM GMT. To ensure seamless customer support:
- Set the working hours for your UK reps in their local time zone. This will ensure that when they are out of office, it’s reflected accurately.
- Plan for holidays by setting out-of-office in advance for UK-specific holidays, you can manage expectations and coverage.
- Ticket assignment so if a UK rep is out until 5 PM GMT, but a ticket comes in with a week-long SLA, it can be assigned to them. However, if they're out for a longer period, the ticket should be reassigned to someone available in the US or another region.
By following these steps, you can ensure that your team's availability is accurately reflected, and customer inquiries are routed efficiently even during out-of-office periods.
Author: Bridget Pyne
Marketing Manager