Out of hours

What happens to chats after hours

Almost nobody staffs live chat around the clock, and pretending otherwise is how enquiries get lost. The question worth answering isn't "how do we be online always" - it's what happens to the person who arrives at 11pm on a Sunday. Here's what ZChat does with them.

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The widget tells the truth

When no agent is available the widget offers a leave-a-message form rather than a live chat it can't deliver. Nobody is left typing hopefully into a queue with no one at the other end - which is the experience people actually resent.

Hours you set

Set opening hours per day, including windows that cross midnight for evening shifts. The widget goes offline on schedule even if somebody left a console logged in overnight.

A digest each morning

ZChat can email your support address everything missed in the last 24 hours, at an hour you choose. The overnight pile has already introduced itself before anyone opens the dashboard.

Sunday, 11pm

What actually happens, step by step.

Moment	What happens
They open the widget	It has already checked availability, so it presents a message form rather than a false promise of a live agent.
They send their question	Name, email and message are stored as a missed chat in your own database, with the page they were on for context.
If webhooks are set up	Your Slack, Teams or Discord channel can be notified - useful if somebody is informally on call.
Monday morning	The digest lands in your support inbox listing everything from the last 24 hours, so nothing depends on someone remembering to check.
Your team replies	Answer by email from the dashboard, or export the lot to CSV to work through elsewhere.

"Can't an AI just cover the nights?"

As of the August 2026 package, it can - as a choice, not a default. The chatbot and its widget surface are two settings, both off until you enable them. Switch both on and visitors who arrive after hours get the AI assistant instead of only the message form, grounded in your knowledge base, with a per-visitor answer budget - and anything the bot can't resolve still lands in the missed-chat queue your morning digest covers.

Worth weighing before you do: overnight is when questions are least likely to be routine and a wrong answer sits unchallenged for eight hours. Some teams genuinely want AI there; others find that capturing the message well and replying first thing beats a bot guessing at 3am. We wrote up when not to use a chatbot for exactly this decision.

The unglamorous part

Capture beats coverage

A message answered at 9am on Monday is a good outcome. A chat window that spun forever at 11pm on Sunday is not, and neither is an enquiry that landed somewhere nobody looks. Most of the value out of hours isn't clever - it's making sure the enquiry is recorded, someone is told, and it's easy to answer.

Off until you set it

The digest only sends once you've set a support email address, so it never mails an inbox you didn't choose.

Your database

Missed chats are stored with everything else, on your own server. See where your data lives.

What does a visitor see when nobody is available?

The widget switches to a leave-a-message form instead of offering a live chat it cannot deliver. The visitor gives their details and question, it is stored as a missed chat, and your team picks it up next working day. Nobody is left typing into a queue that has no one at the other end.

How does the widget know we are closed?

Two ways. It checks whether any agent is actually online and accepting chats, and you can also set operating hours per day - including windows that run past midnight - so the widget goes offline on schedule even if someone left a console open.

How do we find out an enquiry came in overnight?

ZChat can email your support address a daily digest of everything missed in the last 24 hours, at whatever hour suits your morning. It is off until you set a support email address, so it never mails an inbox you did not choose.

Can we reply to a missed chat by email?

Yes. Missed chats include the visitor's email and question, and your team can reply straight from the dashboard. You can also export them to CSV if you would rather work through them in a spreadsheet or feed them into another system.

Can an AI cover the hours we do not?

Yes, if you choose to. The chatbot and its widget surface are two settings, both off by default. Enable both and the widget offers the AI assistant whenever no agent is available, answering from your knowledge base with a per-visitor budget. Anything it cannot handle lands in the same missed-chat queue, so the morning digest still catches everything.

Owned customer support software

Deploy live chat on your own terms, not on someone else's pricing model.

ZChat gives you the installable server, web dashboard, website widget, and desktop agent tools in one self-hosted product you buy once and keep. Run it on infrastructure you trust and connect AI only if and how you want it.

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Deployment

Install on Windows or Linux, behind IIS or Nginx, in a VM, or in Docker if that fits your stack.

Commercial model

One-time purchase, perpetual license, and no monthly per-agent bill attached to growth.

AI Flexibility

Use Ollama locally or connect OpenAI and Anthropic with your own provider accounts.