At 9:40 on a Sunday night, your phone lights up. It might be a customer with a real emergency, someone wanting to book next week, or a sales call. Right now, what happens next probably depends on your mood, whether you're still awake and whether you feel guilty about last time. An after hours call policy replaces that with a decision you made once, calmly, in daylight. It tells your team, and you, what to do with each kind of call that arrives outside opening hours, and it tells callers what to expect.
This post walks through building one: sorting your calls, choosing who or what answers, covering holidays, and writing it down. There's a fill-in template near the end and four worked examples.
Why write an after hours call policy at all
Most small businesses handle evening and weekend calls informally. The owner's mobile is the backup, and whether a call gets answered depends on who happens to be free. That works until:
- the owner goes on holiday and nobody knows the plan
- a new member of staff takes the work phone home and isn't sure what counts as urgent
- a customer complains that you promised a callback that never came
- you realise you've been answering routine questions at 10pm for years
A written policy fixes all four. It doesn't need to be long. One page is enough for most businesses.
Step 1: sort your out-of-hours calls
List the calls you get outside opening hours and put each into one of five groups. If you're not sure what you get, look at your missed-call log or voicemails from the last month.
| Group | What it means | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency | Risk to life, health or property now | Gas smell, flooding, a pet hit by a car, a client arrested |
| Urgent | Needs action before you open, but not this minute | No heating in winter, broken tooth with pain, a booking for tomorrow morning |
| Routine | Can wait until the next working day | New bookings, quotes, price questions |
| Existing customer | Follow-up on work already under way | "When are you arriving?", "Has my order shipped?" |
| Not wanted | Calls you don't need to handle | Sales calls, surveys, wrong numbers |
The emergency group needs the most thought. For many businesses, the honest answer is that a true emergency isn't theirs to handle: a dental practice sends callers to NHS 111 or 999, and a plumber tells callers who smell gas to ring the gas emergency line. Writing that down is part of the policy.
Step 2: decide who or what handles each group
For each group, choose one of these:
- A person on call. Someone answers or calls back within a set time.
- An answering service or AI receptionist. Calls are answered, questions handled, details taken.
- Signposting. Callers are told where to go instead (an emergency number, a website, a partner business).
- Voicemail. Callers leave a message and you call back next working day.
- Nothing. For calls you don't want, no response is a fine response.
If you have someone on call
An on-call rota needs to be fair and sustainable. Agree in writing who covers which nights, what they're paid for being available and for call-outs, and how quickly they're expected to respond. GOV.UK's guidance on maximum weekly working hours is a starting point for UK employers; whether on-call time counts as working time depends on how restricted the person is, so take advice if your rota is demanding.
Keep the on-call group as small as possible. If only emergencies reach the on-call person, they'll answer quickly and stay willing. If every price question reaches them, they'll stop picking up.
If you use an AI receptionist
An AI receptionist is good at the routine and existing-customer groups: answering questions, booking, and taking details for the morning. It is not a substitute for a person in the emergency group. It can give a fixed safety message and record the details, but whether a person is alerted depends on the product. Check exactly what yours does before relying on it. Klugon's specifics are covered below.
If you rely on voicemail
Voicemail is fine for routine calls if you return them first thing. The weakness is that many callers won't leave a message. A greeting that tells them exactly what to say ("your name, number and postcode") helps. Our business phone greeting examples include after-hours versions.
Step 3: set response times you'll actually meet
For each group, write down when the caller hears back. Be conservative. A promise kept at 8:30 the next morning is better than a promise of "within the hour" broken at 11pm.
- Emergency: immediate signposting; on-call response within a stated time if you offer one.
- Urgent: first thing next working day, or by a set time if you have on-call cover.
- Routine: within one working day.
- Existing customer: next working day, or answered on the spot if your system has the information.
Step 4: cover bank holidays and closures
Bank holidays are where informal arrangements fail. Decide in advance:
- whether you treat bank holidays as weekends
- who's on call over Christmas and New Year
- what your greeting and website say during a closure, and when they change back
The GOV.UK bank holidays list gives the dates for each part of the UK. Put a reminder in the calendar a week before each one.
Step 5: tell callers what to expect
A policy nobody sees doesn't help callers. Publish the essentials:
- On your phone greeting: that you're closed, your hours, any emergency number, and what to do next.
- On your website contact page: the same information, plus the fastest way to reach you out of hours.
- On your Google Business Profile: accurate opening hours, including holiday hours.
After hours call policy template
Copy this, fill in the brackets, and keep it somewhere your team can find it.
The line about who checks messages each morning matters more than it looks. Policies often fail there: the calls are captured, but nobody owns the follow-up.
Worked examples
Each example uses a made-up business.
Plumbing and heating firm
Northgate Plumbing, two engineers. Emergencies: callers who smell gas are told to ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999, the number given on National Gas's emergency contacts page. Leaks and heating failures are urgent: the engineers alternate weeks on call until 10pm, and later calls are returned at 7:30. Quotes are routine and go to the office the next day. More on the trade: AI receptionist for home services.
Dental practice
Harbour Street Dental. The practice offers no out-of-hours clinical cover. All callers needing urgent advice are told to call NHS 111, and to call 999 for swelling that affects breathing or swallowing, following the NHS guidance on when to use 111. Routine bookings are taken out of hours and confirmed by the team in the morning. Pain calls are marked urgent and returned when the practice opens. See AI receptionist for dentists.
Hair salon
Willow & Wren Hair. There are no emergencies. Bookings, moves and price questions are routine. If many booking requests come in during the evening, handling them out of hours is worth more here than in the other examples. Complaints are logged and returned by the manager the next working day. See AI receptionist for salons.
Law firm
Ashby Clarke Solicitors. Criminal matters involving a client at a police station are emergencies, handled by the duty solicitor rota with its own number given in the greeting. New enquiries are routine: details are taken, a conflict check is run in the morning and the firm calls back. No legal advice is given out of hours by anyone other than a solicitor. See AI receptionist for law firms.
Where Klugon fits in your after hours call policy
If you're using Klugon's AI receptionist, here's what it does and doesn't do outside your opening hours, so you can write your policy around it.
What it does:
- Answers every call at any hour while your plan is live and a number is connected. It doesn't switch modes by time of day, so the same instructions apply at 3pm and 3am. Write them with both in mind.
- Answers questions from your knowledge base, including your hours and policies.
- Books routine appointments into Klugon's built-in calendar, using your opening hours, service lengths and minimum notice, so evening callers can book for the following days. The AI appointment booking page explains how slots are worked out.
- Gives a fixed message you write for emergencies, such as an emergency number.
- Saves the caller's details as a lead with a note, which appears in your dashboard. On voice Business plans and up, it can also be posted to Slack or Zapier.
- Shows every call in your inbox, and the insights page lists leads not contacted after two days, which makes a good morning checklist.
What it doesn't do:
- It can't transfer a call to the person on call, ring their phone, or send them a text or email.
- It doesn't send texts, booking confirmations or reminders to callers.
- It doesn't call anyone back.
So if your policy needs a person woken for a real emergency, keep a separate route for that, such as an on-call mobile number given in the greeting or a human answering service. Klugon covers the routine, urgent-but-can-wait and existing-customer groups, and leaves a record for the morning. Our page on the after hours answering service compares the approaches, and pricing sets out the plans.
Checking the policy works
- Ring your own number out of hours each quarter and follow the path a caller would.
- Check the morning routine. Are messages from the night before being returned by the time you set?
- Count the groups. If emergencies turn out to be rare and routine calls common, an on-call rota may be costing more than it saves.
- Review after anything goes wrong, and at least once a year.
Frequently asked questions
What is an after hours call policy?
A short written plan for what happens to calls outside opening hours: which calls count as emergencies, who or what handles each kind, how quickly callers hear back, and what they're told.
Do small businesses need one?
If anyone other than the owner might answer the phone, or if callers sometimes need urgent help, yes. It takes an hour to write and saves arguments later.
Should I give out my personal mobile number for emergencies?
Only if you're willing to answer it. A separate work mobile on a rota is easier to hand over and switch off.
Can an AI receptionist handle emergencies?
It can recognise them, give a safety message you've written and record the details. Klugon can't transfer calls or alert your phone, so real emergencies need a separate route to a person.
How should we handle bank holidays?
Decide in advance whether they count as weekends, who's on call, and what your greeting says. Change the greeting before the holiday and back again after.
How quickly should we return after-hours messages?
Set a time you'll reliably meet, such as by 10am the next working day, and name who's responsible.
What should the after-hours greeting say?
That you're closed, your hours, any emergency number, and what callers should do next. Keep it short.
Write the first version this week, even if it's rough, and improve it after the next awkward Sunday call.