After hours are from 4PM-8AM, all day on Sunday, all day on Saturday, and holidays. During these times, the office will be considered as close for the time period.
Simply put, the employees are expected to work from the hours of 4PM-8AM. During this time, they are not working, and therefore do not have to check for email. If they do so, it is a courtesy email. All emails to an employee will sit in their email box until it is time to check their email during normal office hours.
Fax
Simply put, there will be no outgoing faxes during this time. This is because the employees are not expected to send faxes during this time. Incoming faxes are received by the telephony service provider, and will hold the fax as a .pdf file until 8AM the next business day.
Telephone
It is important to utilize an IVR since this is a realty company. There might be a need for an emergency repair, or the realty agent may be working off hours. The after hours IVR is as follows:
- General Voicemail (non-emergency)
- Agent
- Emergency Call
- Hours, and Location
- Website Address
Selecting 1 will send the caller to the general voicemail box. All receptionists will have access to this voicemail box. The receptionist will notify any other employee of the call they received, or will return the call during normal business hours. All voicemails received will be handled in the order received.
Selecting 2 will ring the agent’s SIP phone. This is especially important as the agent may have to show a unit to someone that works normal hours, and will not be able to see the place between 8AM-4PM. With that in mind, the SIP phone for the agent will ring allowing the agent to coordinate with the prospective tenant. When the agent is no longer seeing people, they should set their SIP Phone to DND which will send callers to the agent’s voicemail.
Selecting 3 will send the caller to a pager’s voicemail box. The caller will not know it is a pager line, but the pager will sound off and notify me of any voicemails. I will then call the pager number, enter the system, and listen to any would be emergencies. If it is a legitimate emergency, I will call the tenant back, and make arrangements for the maintenance person to get there as soon as possible. If it is not an emergency, I will wait until normal business hours, and call the tenant back to remind them that the emergency line is for emergencies only. I will also send the repair order to the maintenance person so they can address the issue.
Selecting 4 will provide a pre-recorded message giving the office hours, and the address located at 1737-e on the second floor. They will also be informed of the public transit options that are available including the 3 bus routes to this location.
Selecting 5 will provide a spelled out URL for the caller to write down so they will know where to look. They will also be given the address of contact@fsp.homes which will send the email to a unified email box for the receptionist.