After-hours phone tree template, ready to copy
The closed greeting, four caller options, who each one reaches and what gets written down. Every line is on this page, ready to paste into your phone system.
- Greeting: “Thanks for calling Harbor Plumbing. You’ve reached us after hours. The office opens again at 8am tomorrow.”
- Menu: “If this is an emergency, press 1. To book or change a visit, press 2. To leave a message for the office, press 3. For our hours and address, press 4.”
- Press 1, emergency: “We’ll connect you to the on-call technician now. Please stay on the line.” Ring the on-call mobile for 30 seconds.
- On-call line busy or unanswered: “Nobody could pick up just now. Leave your name, number and address, and the on-call technician will call you back first.” Record the message and text the on-call number that a message is waiting.
- Press 2, book or change a visit: “Leave your name, the best number to reach you, and the day that suits. We’ll confirm the time when the office opens.”
- Press 3, message for the office: “Leave your name, your number and what you need. Calls are returned in the order they came in, from 8am.”
- Press 4, hours and address: “We’re open Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, at 14 Harbor Street. Press 0 to hear the options again.”
- No key pressed for 10 seconds: play the menu once more, then treat the call as option 3 and record a message.
Where each option goes
| Option | Who takes it | What happens | What gets written down |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Emergency | On-call technician | Live transfer, 30-second ring, then voicemail with a text alert | Name, number, address, the problem in one sentence |
| 2 Book or change | Front desk, next morning | Message recorded, confirmed at 8am | Name, number, preferred day, existing appointment if any |
| 3 Message | Front desk, next morning | Message recorded, returned in order | Name, number, reason for calling |
| 4 Hours and address | Nobody | Recorded answer, back to the menu | Nothing |
| No key pressed | Front desk, next morning | Menu repeated once, then option 3 | Whatever the caller says |
The message fields, in the order to ask them
- Name, and how it’s spelled if it’s unusual.
- The best number to call back, read twice.
- The address of the job, if someone has to come out.
- What’s wrong, in one sentence.
- Whether anything is dangerous right now: water you can’t shut off, a gas smell, no heat with a baby in the house.
- When they’d like the visit, and the earliest they could be home.
- Whether a text reply is fine, so the morning confirmation doesn’t need another call.
Swap-ins by trade
- HVAC: option 1 says “no heat, no cooling in a heatwave, or a smell of gas”, and the on-call ring goes to the technician on the rota that week.
- Dental: option 1 becomes “a knocked-out tooth, uncontrolled bleeding, or swelling that’s closing your throat” and rings the dentist’s mobile; option 2 offers the first slot after 8am.
- Property management: option 1 lists “water coming through, no heat, a lockout, or a smell of gas” and rings maintenance; option 3 asks for the unit number before the name.
- Law firm: option 1 says “an arrest or a court date in the next 48 hours” and rings the attorney on duty; everything else is a message the intake desk returns in the morning.
- Veterinary: option 1 reads out the emergency clinic’s number twice before offering the on-call vet, because a pet that can’t breathe needs a building, not a callback.
How to put it into your phone system
Swap in your business name, your hours and your address, and change nothing else on the first pass. Option 1 stays first, because a caller with a burst pipe presses the first thing they hear. Four options is the ceiling in this template; a longer menu gets hung up on before the caller reaches the one they wanted.
Write the emergency rule as one sentence a stranger could apply at 2am. “Water you can’t shut off” works. “Urgent issues” doesn’t, because every caller thinks theirs is urgent. Put that sentence inside the option 1 prompt so callers sort themselves before they press anything.
Record the greeting yourself, or have the person callers already know record it. You’re telling someone at 9pm that the office is closed; a familiar voice makes that land as a plan rather than a brush-off.
Set the schedule where your phone system keeps business hours, so the tree switches on at close and off at opening without anyone remembering to do it. Most VoIP dashboards call this a business-hours rule or an after-hours route. Add your closure dates in the same place.
Then test it from your own mobile after close. Press every option. Check that option 1 rang the right phone, that the voicemail from option 3 reached the inbox the table says it should, and that the text alert arrived. Do it again the week the on-call rota changes.
How GreetKeeper runs this tree without the keypad
You forward your existing number to the dedicated local number that comes with every GreetKeeper plan, one per location, area code chosen at signup. Forward all calls after close, or use no-answer mode so GreetKeeper takes only the calls you miss. The ring count is set where the forwarding is set, and GreetKeeper answers the moment the call arrives.
GreetKeeper says it’s an AI at the start of the call, then asks what the caller needs instead of reading a menu. It routes by what the caller needs, so the four options above become four rules. A caller who says “there’s water coming through the ceiling” goes straight to option 1 without pressing anything.
Option 1 becomes a transfer to your on-call number. If that number doesn’t pick up, GreetKeeper tries a second number you nominate, and it texts the on-call person the caller’s name, number and the problem in one line.
Option 2 becomes a real booking. GreetKeeper offers the first slot you have free after opening, reads the name, number and time back before it books, and writes the visit into Google Calendar or Microsoft 365. After the call, the caller receives one text with the booking confirmation, and a reply with the opt-out word stops further texts.
Option 3 becomes a message with every field from the list above captured in conversation. You get a transcript and a short summary in your inbox, so the 7am read is what the caller said, not a guess at a muffled voicemail.
Option 4 is answered on the spot from the hours, address and questions you train it on. Set closure dates once and it answers as closed on those days. Robocalls and silent callers are screened out before the greeting and don’t count toward your plan.
Starter is $49 a month for 200 answered calls, then $0.45 a call. Booking is included on every plan, every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with every feature on, and no card is needed to start.
Questions people ask about this template
What should an after-hours phone tree say first?
That you’re closed, and when you open again, in the first sentence. A caller at 9pm who hears a normal daytime greeting waits through the whole menu expecting a person. Say “you’ve reached us after hours, the office opens at 8am” before the first option, then give them the emergency path.
How many options should an after-hours phone tree have?
Four at most: emergency, booking, message, and hours. This template uses all four, and a business with no emergency work can drop to three. Every option you add moves the one the caller wanted further down the list, and callers press the first thing that sounds close.
What counts as an emergency on an after-hours line?
Whatever you’d get out of bed for, written as one sentence the caller can apply themselves. For a plumber that’s water you can’t shut off or a smell of gas; for a dentist it’s a knocked-out tooth or bleeding that won’t stop. Put the sentence inside the option 1 prompt, and route everything else to a morning callback.
Do I have to tell callers it’s an AI if an assistant answers instead of the tree?
In Maine, yes: Title 10 §1500-DD, in force since October 1, 2025, requires clear notice when an AI could be mistaken for a person on a call. In Utah, medical, legal, accounting and other regulated occupations must disclose verbally at the start. GreetKeeper’s disclosure setting announces the AI at the start of every call, so the rule is met before the caller says a word.
Hear it take your after-hours call
Your tree, your emergency rule, a couple of minutes.