Guides · Answer customers at night
How to answer customers at night, without hiring.
Most questions that arrive after hours are the same few: shipping, prices, opening hours. Here’s a setup that answers them while you sleep and leaves the rest ready for the morning.
A setup you can do in one afternoon
- List the ten questions you get most. Look through a few weeks of emails, WhatsApp chats and calls. Shipping, prices, opening hours, returns and “do you have…?” usually cover most of them.
- Write one short, friendly answer for each, in your customers’ language. Add the words people actually use (“delivery”, “shipping”, “send”) as keywords.
- Decide what happens when there’s no answer: a clear message saying when a person will reply, and a way for the visitor to leave their email.
Tips that make it work
Be honest about the hours
Say when a person will reply (“tomorrow from 9:00”). People are patient when they know.
Keep answers short
Two or three sentences and one link. Long answers don’t get read on a phone.
Ask for an email
If a question needs you, ask for the visitor’s email so you can follow up even if they close the page.
Review every Monday
Read the questions that went unanswered and add answers for them. It gets better every week.
Questions
Will customers know it’s automatic?
In Habla Hola, auto-replies are labelled, and when a person joins the visitor sees their name. Being open about it builds trust.
What if someone asks for a person at night?
The chat is marked as waiting for you and the visitor sees your offline message. In the morning it’s waiting in your inbox.
Do I need an AI chatbot for this?
Usually not. Most after-hours questions have fixed answers, and saved answers are predictable: they never invent prices or policies.