Setting up automated greeting and away messages can help you more effectively communicate with your customers, regardless of when they reach out. These automated messages can save time for the business, as they allow it to avoid having to respond to every customer message manually to manually respond to every customer message. This can improve the customer experience and build customer trust in the business.

To do this:

1. Go to Settings.

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2. Click on Greeting and Away Messages on the left panel.

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3. Set the Business working hours. 

- Set up the working hours for your business, specify your time range by clicking on the clock icon, and turn on your business's working days by clicking on the toggle switch. In our example, our business is open from 10 AM to 7 PM Monday to Friday, so we designated Monday to Friday as working days and set the time range to 10:00 AM. to 7:00 PM.

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- If your business is non-operational, you can turn off working days. In our example, our business is closed on weekends, i.e. Saturday and Sunday, and the working days for those days are turned off, thus an away message will be triggered when customers reach out during those times.

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- Select the timezone for your business's location. This will ensure that the automated messages are sent at the correct times, based on the business's local time. In our example, our business is located in the United States, so our timezone will be (GMT-04:00) US/Eastern.

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4. Set up the automated greeting message. This will typically involve turning on the option for a greeting message and then typing the message in the provided text box. The greeting should be a welcome message sent to customers during the business's working hours. For example, if a customer sends you a message during your business hours, you could set up an automated greeting that says something like:

“Thank you for contacting us! How may I help you today?”

Note: How often the greeting message is triggered for incoming messages from the same person can be customized based on your preferences. You can set the time interval for triggering the greeting message once in a specific number of days or hours.

Select the desired time interval from the dropdown menu and type in the appropriate number of days or hours for the time interval. For example, if you want the greeting message to be triggered only once every 7 days, you would select "Days" from the dropdown menu and enter "7" in the corresponding text box.

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5. Set up the automated away message. This will typically involve turning on the option for an away message and then typing the message in the provided text box. The away message should be a message that is sent to customers outside of the business's working hours, letting them know when the business will be available again.  For example, if a customer sends you a message after your business hours, you could set up an automated away message that says something like:

"Thank you for contacting us! Unfortunately, we are currently closed and will not be able to respond to your message until we reopen on Monday. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at xxxxx@gmail.com, and our team will assist you as soon as possible."

Note: How often the away message is triggered for incoming messages from the same person can be customized based on your preferences. You can set the time interval for triggering the away message once in a specific number of days or hours.

Select the desired time interval from the dropdown menu and type in the appropriate number of days or hours for the time interval. For example, if you want the away message to be triggered only once every 4 hours, you would select "Hours" from the dropdown menu and enter "4" in the corresponding text box.

Once you have completed the setup of your automated greeting and away messages, it is a good idea to test them to ensure they are functioning correctly.

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Keywords: Away message, Welcome message, Automated message, Business hours.

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