After-hours auto-replies that keep customers from going to competitors

It's past ten at night, and a customer messages a repair shop on WhatsApp. Their dishwasher won't turn on, and guests are coming tomorrow. No reply comes, so they paste the same message to two more shops they found in search. At 9 the next morning your manager sits down at the computer and sees a request from someone who has already booked whoever answered first.

An after-hours auto-reply covers that overnight gap. Your CRM sends it based on a business hours rule, and E-chat delivers it to Viber, Telegram or WhatsApp from the same number the customer wrote to. Below, step by step - how to build the flow in amoCRM, Bitrix24 and KeyCRM, what to say to people, and what should be waiting in the CRM when the workday starts.

Key takeaways

• The auto-reply goes into a conversation the customer started, so messaging app limits on first messages to new contacts don't apply.

• Promise the customer a specific time.

• Send one reply per conversation per night. The bot skips the customer's second and later messages until morning.

• By morning, the request should have a deal, an owner and a task due before the time the auto-reply promised. Without that, the bot just postpones losing the customer until lunchtime.

• A quick calculation - a WhatsApp number in E-chat costs $15.99 a month, and a single retained customer with an $80 order pays for it five times over.

What happens to a message that arrives after closing

On a messaging app, customers expect replies at the pace their friends reply. They aren't thinking about your office hours. They see a delivered message and silence. Messaging the next company in the search results takes thirty seconds, and they have no reason to keep you first in line.

Overnight requests cost money, and you can count it

Take an appliance repair shop as an example. It's open weekdays from 9 to 7, gets 30 messaging app inquiries a day, and 8 of them arrive in the evening, at night or on weekends. Say that without an auto-reply, 5 of those 8 people respond to the manager's message in the morning, and three have already found a technician.

Three lost customers at an average order of $80 comes to $240 a day and $5,280 over 22 business days. An auto-reply won't win them all back. If it keeps even one customer a week, that's $80 in revenue against $15.99 a month for a WhatsApp number on the E-chat plan.

Where to see your overnight inquiries

If your conversations already run through a CRM, you can see the share of overnight requests by deal creation time or by the time of the first incoming message. Filter last month's deals created after the end of the workday and on weekends.

It's worse when messaging apps live on managers' personal phones. Then overnight messages aren't recorded anywhere, and nobody knows how many people gave up waiting. Once the number is connected to E-chat, every message, including those sent from the phone, is saved in the CRM, and the count takes care of itself.

Who sends the auto-reply and why the CRM does it

Two systems split the work. The CRM decides when and what to reply based on its own schedule and conditions. E-chat connects the Viber, Telegram or WhatsApp account tied to your phone number, delivers the message to the customer and brings their reply back into the record. The rules live alongside your deals and business hours, so there's no reason to set them up in a third place.

Messaging app limits don't get in the way here. According to the E-chat help center, the limits in Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp apply to first messages sent to people who haven't written to you before. The auto-reply lands in a conversation the customer opened, so even from a recently connected number, the messaging app treats it as an ordinary reply from a manager.

amoCRM and Kommo

In amoCRM, you build the flow in Salesbot and set it to trigger on an incoming message. The bot checks whether it's business hours, and outside them it sends the text, adds a tag and creates a task. Kommo, the international version of amoCRM, works the same way.

Bitrix24

In Bitrix24, automation rules do the same job. You place the rule on the first pipeline stage, where new messaging app requests land, and give it a time condition. E-chat connects to both cloud Bitrix24 and the on-premise version, so the setup is the same for the self-hosted edition.

If the pipeline already has a rule for new deals, such as a notification to the owner, it's easier to put the overnight reply in a separate rule. That way you can turn one off without touching the other.

KeyCRM

Through E-chat, KeyCRM connects to Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp can't be connected to this CRM. In KeyCRM, business hours are set in the settings, and chat auto-replies rely on them, according to the KeyCRM help docs. For an online store on KeyCRM that talks to customers in Viber, that's the short route, with no need to build a separate flow with a time check.

Other CRMs and systems without a ready-made integration

E-chat has more than 20 integrations, including Creatio, NetHunt, Odoo, SalesDrive and RO App, which connect to all three messengers. If your system has automation rules or triggers for incoming messages, build the auto-reply there.

If your CRM isn't on the list, Viber connects through ApiX-Drive or Wepster, and Telegram and WhatsApp through your own solution on the E-chat API. The overnight reply rule then lives in whichever system handles your automation, and the number sends whatever that system produces.

[Expert insight] The FAQ on the E-chat website has a question about automatic messages, and the answer is short. Automatic sending works if your CRM supports it, and it's usually set up on a status change. That's handy for an overnight flow. If the pipeline already has a rule for new requests, you add a time condition and a text to it, and the connected number handles delivery to Viber, Telegram or WhatsApp. Our own support team also keeps set hours, weekdays from 9 to 7, and the average response time during those hours is 3 minutes.

What to write to customers at night

The overnight message does two jobs. It tells the person when they'll hear back, and it collects what will save the manager half an hour of back-and-forth in the morning. The second job matters more than it seems. At that moment the customer has the phone in hand and will gladly send a photo, the appliance model or a list of items.

Three parts of an overnight reply

The first line confirms the message got through. The second gives the reply time, ideally with some buffer. If the manager starts at 9, write "by 10" rather than "from 9". The third asks for whatever you'd otherwise have to ask for in the morning.

A phone screen shows three or four lines without scrolling, so aim to fit into that. Technically there's room for any text, since Viber and Telegram accept up to 4096 characters, but a long auto-reply reads like a brush-off.

Six messages for different situations

Online store, an evening question about stock. "Good evening! We got your message, and our managers are available from 9 to 7. We'll check availability by 10 a.m. tomorrow and reply right here. Send us the product name or a screenshot from the website so we can find it faster."

Appliance repair. "Hello! The shop is closed right now, we open at 9 a.m. Tell us the model and what happened, and if you can, record a short video. In the morning a technician will take a look and tell you right away how long the repair will take."

Clinic or salon, appointments. "Thanks for reaching out! Our front desk will reply tomorrow from 8 a.m. and find you a time. Let us know which specialist you'd like to see and which days work for you, and we'll offer options in our very first message."

Wholesale supply. "Good evening. We've logged your request, and a manager will send a quote by 11 tomorrow. If you have a spec sheet or a list of items, attach the file right here in this chat."

Weekends. "Hello! We're closed on weekends, but we've got your message. We'll reply first thing Monday, by 10."

Emergency service with an on-call technician. "We got your message. If there's a water leak or the heating is out, call the on-call technician at the number on our website, available 24/7. We'll handle all other requests tomorrow from 8 a.m."

What to cut from the message

The phrase "your inquiry is important to us" says nothing, and customers scroll past it without reading. Same goes for apologizing for the inconvenience, since the customer hasn't been inconvenienced yet.

Don't sign the reply with a manager's name if a different employee will write in the morning, or the person will feel they're being passed from hand to hand. And don't promise a price or a timeline the bot can't know. A real person will give those in the morning.

The request waits for morning in the CRM, not in the chat list

An auto-reply buys you time until morning, and wasting it is easy. The message sits in the chat feed, gets scrolled past at 9 a.m. along with twenty others, and the customer gets a reply around lunchtime and compares it with what competitors have already sent.

The deal is created that same minute

The same flow that sent the text creates a deal in a separate stage, such as overnight requests, or adds a tag. The conversation is already linked to the customer card, so in the morning the manager opens the deal and sees the question along with the photo the customer sent.

A first-hour task with the same deadline as the message

Set the task deadline earlier than the time the auto-reply promised. If the message promises a reply by 10, the task is due at a quarter to ten, so the manager has time for a follow-up question.

The owner is assigned by the same distribution rule you use during the day. If you have a morning on-call person, it's easier to give them all the overnight deals, so one person works through the queue and requests don't have to be split round-robin.

Morning review and oversight

In the first fifteen minutes of the day, the manager works through the overnight requests stage from top to bottom, in order of arrival. Those who sent photos and details get a substantive answer, and those who only said hello get a question back.

At 10 a.m., the support lead only needs to check how many overnight request tasks are overdue. If there are two or three every morning, move the time in the auto-reply back by an hour instead of rushing the managers.

How many times to reply at night and how to handle exceptions

At night, customers write in bursts. A greeting, a question, a photo, a clarification, another photo. A rule that fires on every incoming message will send five identical texts in a row while the person is still typing their question.

One reply per conversation per after-hours period

After the first reply, the flow puts a marker on the record, a tag or a field with the send date, and checks it in the trigger condition. The marker is cleared at the start of the workday or once a manager has replied to the customer. If a customer wrote on Friday evening and came back on Saturday, they don't need a second reply, since they already know about Monday.

Holidays and time zones

Add holidays to the CRM schedule in advance, or on January 1 the bot will stay silent, because to the CRM it's a normal workday. Write separate holiday messages that give the date you'll be back.

E-chat works with customers in more than 30 countries, and if your buyers live in a different time zone, include the city with the time, for example "by 10 a.m. Kyiv time". A customer in Almaty who reads just "by 10" will expect a reply by their own clock.

When a person replies at night

Sometimes the owner handles urgent messages at night. With E-chat, messages can be sent both from the CRM and straight from the messaging app on the phone, and the history is still saved in the record. In the morning the manager sees that the customer has already been answered and doesn't repeat the reply.

The flow has to account for that. If an employee replied manually, no auto-reply goes out for the rest of the night, and the same marker you use against repeats works for this.

Test before going live

In the evening, after the workday ends, send three messages in a row and a photo to your business number from a personal phone. If everything is set up correctly, you'll get one auto-reply, and the CRM will show a deal in the overnight stage with an owner and a task due before the promised time. Then reply from the on-call phone and write again. There should be no auto-reply.

Run the same test in Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp if all three numbers are connected. The 7-day free E-chat trial is enough for the initial setup, since that's time for the flow to run on real evening inquiries and at least one weekend.

FAQ

Question: Will the Viber auto-reply work if the phone with the business number is turned off at night?

Answer: Yes. According to the E-chat help center, you can turn off the phone Viber was activated on without affecting the service. You shouldn't delete Viber from it or use the "Change Number" feature.

Question: Will the customer realize a bot replied?

Answer: The message comes from the same number they wrote to, in a regular chat. E-chat connects accounts tied to phone numbers, not bots, so there are no labels in the conversation. That's why it's better to write the auto-reply on behalf of the company rather than pretend to be a live manager. Then the morning reply doesn't look like a change of person.

Question: How much does it cost to set up auto-replies in all three messaging apps?

Answer: The auto-replies themselves are set up in the CRM, and E-chat charges for connected numbers. On E-chat plans, a Telegram number costs $16.99 a month, Viber $29.99 and WhatsApp $15.99, for a total of $62.97. The plan doesn't limit the number of managers or messages, and paying for several numbers for 12 months gets you a discount of up to 40%.

Question: Can I attach a price list or catalog file to the overnight reply?

Answer: E-chat supports documents, images and video, with files up to 200 MB in Viber and up to 128 MB in Telegram. Whether the bot itself can attach a file depends on your CRM's automation. If it can't, add a link to the price list on your website in the text.

Question: Will overnight requests leave with a manager if they quit?

Answer: No. Conversations run from the company's number and are stored in the CRM. An employee can't take the phone number, export the database or move customers to personal chats, so morning requests and their full history stay with you.

Question: Will overnight conversations be kept if we change our business number later?

Answer: Yes. When you change the number in E-chat and connect the new one to the CRM, conversations stay in the customer card, along with the auto-replies and overnight requests.