Base prompts for proper handling of business hours and transfers

Community Discussion
1

We have been trying a multitude of different base prompts including ones generated by Chat GPT and I have to admit I’m ready to throw in the towel on this one. What I want to do is have Apollo answer ALL of our traffic until human interaction is requested but ONLY allow transfer requests during business hours and outside of those provide a link to our contact page. It only works seemingly when it wants to if anyone has a bulletproof setup for this we’d sure appreciate it. Here is what we are using currently:

-Check the current time in the eastern time zone prior to any action or reply.
-Business hours are Monday through Friday, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time.
-The business is closed on weekends (Saturday and Sunday).
-If the current time is before 9:00 AM ET or after 5:00 PM ET, the business is closed.
-Refuse to transfer or escalate chats outside of business hours however instead reply with a link to the Contact Us page.

2

Hi,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

Have you tried setting up the AI to respond only during specific time periods? If not, you can configure this under the Behavior Settings, where you’ll find an option to schedule when the AI is online and active.

Here’s a screenshot for reference:
:camera_flash: Screenshot by Lightshot

This should help ensure the AI follows your desired business hours and behaves consistently.

Let us know if you need help setting it up!

3

I have yes! The goal is to have AI answer 100% of chats and ONLY transfer during business hours. I also found a bug apparently, the system clock on these things is way off or at least on my instance it is… at 9:11 AM Eastern time it was reporting the time was 3:50 pm so no time zone alignment anywhere which isn’t helping things. if I can find a way to have it check in accurate time source and reply using that information I’d be fine.

4

Hi @GTPprix ,

Thanks for sharing the detailed breakdown — we completely understand the frustration.

At the moment, Apollo AI is not context-aware of time , so it can’t reliably check or respond based on the current time zone.

We’re aware of the limitation and our goal is to have a solution in place by the end of July.

In the meantime, here’s a workaround:
When a customer asks to speak to a human, customize the AI’s fallback response to include your business hours and provide a Suggested Message like “Email us.”

EMAIL US
EMAIL US758×1134 96.9 KB

Clicking this can trigger a shortcut that opens a form or directs them to your Contact Us page.

Form
Form752×1128 67.6 KB

We know it’s not perfect, but it helps maintain flow outside business hours without offering a transfer.

We’ll keep the community posted as soon as a time-aware feature becomes available.

If you’d like help setting up this workaround or customizing your prompt, feel free to schedule a call with our AI Assist support team here — we’re happy to walk you through it!