WhatsApp shift coverage: who answers at night, at lunch and on weekends
Cover WhatsApp across the day without sending chats to someone who is away: shifts, time off, a short grace period, and a named keeper for the queue.
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WhatsApp does not close at 6 pm, but your team does. Coverage means deciding, before a customer writes, who is eligible at each hour. In WavesFlo a chat goes only to someone who is signed in, on shift and not on time off, so a person at lunch, on leave or off for the night is passed over and the chat waits in the queue instead of landing on them.
How do you plan the day?
| Hours | Who is on | If nobody is |
|---|---|---|
| Core hours | The full team, under their caps | The backlog shows waiting chats; a supervisor requeues |
| Lunch | A rota, so one person always covers | Treat it as a shift, not an exception |
| Evenings | A smaller team or one person on shift | Chats wait; reply first thing, and say so in a saved message |
| Nights and weekends | Nobody, or one on-call person | Quiet hours hold campaign messages; replies wait for the morning |
How do shifts and time off work?
- Hours and shifts are set as calendars with daily caps, plus time off.
- Presence matters: someone signed out is not eligible. A short grace period, about a minute and a half, stops a dropped connection looking like a departure.
- Tickets count their clocks in your working calendar, so a message at 11 pm does not start a night of lateness.
What do you tell customers outside hours?
Say when you will reply, in a saved message the team can send in two keystrokes, or turn on keyword replies and an automatic greeting for the hours you are closed. Do not promise a time you cannot meet; a target is a goal you choose, not a guarantee.
Who is accountable for the queue overnight?
Name a keeper for each period, and write it in the plan. Chats that arrive overnight are the first thing they read, which makes the morning routine the real coverage: unassigned chats in a shared queue sets one out.
WavesFlo hands a chat only to someone signed in, on shift and under their cap, so the rota on paper and the queue behave alike. Shifts and time off are among the routing settings described on the features page.
Questions
How do I cover WhatsApp outside office hours?
Set shifts and time off so chats go only to someone present, send a saved message saying when you will reply, and have a named person clear the queue first thing.
Does a chat go to someone who is on leave?
No. People on time off, off shift or signed out are skipped.
Do ticket clocks run at night?
No. They are counted on your working calendar.