# Set business hours and an away message

> Tell customers who write outside your opening hours when you'll be back.

Source: https://docs.soosh.io/guides/chatbot/set-business-hours-and-an-away-message/

## Before you start

- Owner or admin role in Soosh

## Set the hours

1. Go to [**Settings > Bot settings**](https://app.soosh.io/settings/bot) and choose **Hours**.
2. Turn on **Enable business hours**.
3. For each day, turn it on or off, and set when you open and close. Each day
   has one opening time and one closing time.
4. In **Out of hours message**, write what customers get outside those hours,
   like *Thanks for your message! We're open 10 am to 9 pm and will reply first
   thing tomorrow.*
5. Choose whether the bot keeps working outside hours: turn on **Allow
   automated responses outside hours** to let flows, keyword replies and AI
   answer as usual.
6. Click **Save** in the bar at the bottom.

   *Picture: The Hours settings: business hours on, Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00, weekends off, the out of hours message, and automated responses allowed outside hours*

## Result

Outside your hours:

- With **Allow automated responses outside hours** off, customers get your out
  of hours message and nothing else.
- With it on, the bot answers as usual, but any chat it would hand to your team
  gets the out of hours message instead, and isn't queued.

## Also in Bot settings > Messages

- **Greeting message**: sent when a customer starts a new conversation, unless
  a flow starts instead.
- **Fallback message**: sent when nothing else could answer, like *Sorry, I
  didn't understand that.*

## Related

- Guide: [Hand chats to agents](https://docs.soosh.io/guides/chatbot/hand-chats-to-agents/)