Jobber Receptionist after-hours setup: book, message or transfer

Your phone rings while you’re finally sitting down to dinner. A tune-up caller should get a slot, a complicated repair should get a callback, and an urgent call should reach the person covering tonight. Give Jobber Receptionist those three routes instead of one catch-all greeting.

Choose what happens after the ring

Caller needs	Set up this route	Where you pick it up
A routine service you sell at a defined duration	Schedule jobs, using Online Booking	The scheduled job and visit
Work that needs a closer look before scheduling	Submit Requests with your selected form	The request queue
A callback, rather than a booking or request	Create follow-up tasks with named assignees	The task on your schedule
The person covering urgent calls	Escalation Policy: text or phone transfer	The escalation contact’s phone

Keep the booking list small at first: maintenance visits, standard cleans or another service with a predictable time allowance. Send messy scope questions to a person who can price and schedule them properly. Receptionist’s booking, request, task and escalation actions are described in Jobber’s setup help.

For a platform decision rather than a setup job, read Jobber Receptionist vs HighLevel Voice AI or Jobber Receptionist vs Housecall Pro CSR AI. Already running Jobber? Start with its own job records and schedule before building a second call workflow elsewhere.

1. Enable Receptionist and connect the number

Sign in as an admin on Jobber.com. Choose Receptionist → Get Started in the side navigation. Work through the greeting, automatic scheduling/request actions, team involvement and essential business information. Add your services, policies and the details callers ask for most often: service area, opening hours and what happens next.

Use the setup’s preview call to hear the voice and company name. Then complete the add-on purchase if needed, set up the dedicated Jobber number when prompted, and choose Save & Exit. For later changes, open Receptionist → Manage and turn voice calls on.

A dedicated Jobber number is required even when customers keep dialing your existing business number. Jobber currently offers those numbers in the US, Canada and UK. Your phone carrier handles forwarding from the existing number; Receptionist handles the call once it reaches Jobber. Set the carrier to forward missed calls or after-hours calls according to the coverage you want. See Jobber’s activation and forwarding instructions.

Tip: Keep your public number. Change the route behind it, then call that public number from another phone. That catches forwarding problems the built-in preview won’t exercise.

2. Give closed hours their own welcome

In Receptionist → Manage, edit the phone greeting and enable Business hours. You can write separate business-hours and after-hours greetings, with a separate phone menu for each. With that toggle off, every caller hears the same default greeting.

During the day, a menu option to speak with the office makes sense. After closing, offer a live transfer only while someone is actually covering it. Jobber’s example removes the speak-to-someone option after hours when nobody is available. Greeting hours and carrier forwarding are separate controls: changing the welcome doesn’t configure your carrier.

The phone greeting is read exactly as written. Put the welcome and next step there; put service policies and background information in the business information that guides answers. Use a phonetic company name if its pronunciation needs a nudge. Jobber explains greetings, business hours and phone menus here.

3. Make the right services bookable

Turn on Schedule jobs for Receptionist. It uses your Online Booking settings to decide which services and team members it can book. A caller reaching you at night can book a later available slot; answering the phone after hours and sending a crew after hours are different decisions.

Open your Online Booking setup and review the service list, duration, eligible team members and availability. Use the earliest-availability setting to leave the preparation time your crew needs. Give a furnace tune-up enough room on the calendar; keep an uncertain repair out of the routine-service lane.

In Jobber’s current forms setup, Gear → Settings → Requests and bookings is where you manage forms and booking questions. Team availability is edited through Manage Team. Online Booking can schedule an assessment or a job depending on the form’s booking setup; a date preference on a request alone isn’t an appointment. Jobber’s Online Booking help covers those settings.

For work that needs review, enable Submit Requests and select the request form. If you also enable appointment handling, Receptionist can look up upcoming visits and add notes. Rescheduling needs Online Booking enabled; cancellation has its own permission. Keep those switches aligned with what your office wants callers to change. Receptionist’s action controls are here.

4. Put a person behind urgent calls and messages

Under Manage → Actions, turn Escalation Policy on. Add the terms your customers actually use—Jobber gives “emergency,” “urgent” and “speak to a manager” as examples—then choose the contact and method:

• Send a text message: the escalation contact receives a transcript snippet and a link to return the call.
• Transfer the call: Receptionist transfers to the contact’s phone; “Use different number” lets you enter another receiving number.

The escalation number must differ from your business number and dedicated Jobber number. Use the phone carried by tonight’s responsible person, and update it when coverage changes. For emergencies, this is your human handoff: write your shop’s emergency instructions into its business information and route the call to that person. A greeting should describe the coverage you actually provide.

For ordinary messages, edit Create follow-up tasks → Assigned to. Tasks default to all admins, but naming the morning callback owner makes the queue easier to clear. After-hours tasks are scheduled for the following day. Optional email notifications help the assignees see them; Jobber documents mobile push notifications for tasks created during business hours. Jobber’s escalation and task instructions cover both routes.

5. Copy a greeting that sounds like your shop

Replace the bracketed details. These are opening greetings; the booking, request and escalation settings above control the actions. The plumbing example is for a shop with staffed on-call coverage; the other two offer routine booking and follow-up.

HVAC: routine booking and a repair callback

Thanks for calling [Company]. Our office is closed until [opening time]. I can help book an available maintenance visit or take the details of a heating or cooling problem for our team. What can we help with, and what’s the service address?

Plumbing: an on-call handoff

You’ve reached [Company] after hours. For an urgent plumbing problem, say “urgent” so I can transfer you to our on-call contact. For routine work, I can help with an available booking or take a message. What’s happening at the property?

Use the same “urgent” keyword in your escalation policy and select phone transfer for that script. If you choose text notification instead, replace “transfer you to our on-call contact” with “notify our on-call contact with your details.”

Cleaning: book a clean or explain the scope

Thanks for calling [Company]. Our office reopens at [opening time]. I can help book an available standard clean or collect the details of a larger or specialist cleaning request for our team. Is this a regular clean, a move-out or something else?

Keep specialist cleaning requests out of the standard-clean booking list until their scope is settled. The Receptionist greeting documentation distinguishes the exact opening script from business information used to guide the conversation.

6. Test the route, then inspect what it created

Use the built-in test callback while setting up. Then call your real business number from another phone during the hours you’re configuring. Run this checklist:

• Ask for a bookable service and take an available slot. Open the resulting job and visit; inspect the service, date, time and assigned person.
• Ask for work that needs review. Open the request and read the captured details.
• Leave a message without booking. Find the assigned task; an after-hours call should land on the following day.
• Say an escalation keyword. Have the receiving person verify the transfer or text, using whichever method you selected.
• Ask about an existing appointment if appointment handling is enabled. Inspect any note or schedule change.
• Listen to the closed-hours greeting and menu through the real forwarding path.

Open Receptionist → Dashboard. The Outcomes card separates jobs, requests and tasks. Recent conversations → View details lets you inspect the call. Look for tags such as Job scheduled, Request created, Took a message, Needs action and Call escalated. A friendly conversation is useful; a correct record with an owner is what makes tomorrow easier. Jobber documents the test callback and dashboard here.

Keep the overnight queue moving

Receptionist’s select-plan add-on is $29/month for 30 conversations, then $0.79 per additional conversation; Plus includes unlimited usage. That sits alongside your Jobber subscription. If you choose the allowance setting that pauses Receptionist at 30 conversations, it can capture a message while paused but cannot book or take other actions. Choose that setting deliberately before sending overnight calls to it.

Once the route is ready, use the 30-day receptionist pilot plan to review what happens on live calls.

Give the callback owner a morning routine: review new tasks and requests, inspect overnight bookings, then return calls needing a person. Use the missed-call calculator to put your own call volume and job values against the cost. Jobber’s usage and pause rules explain what happens at the allowance.

Want calls and the next job in the same place? Explore Jobber, then configure Receptionist around the work your crew can actually deliver.

For the HCP configuration, follow our Housecall Pro CSR AI after-hours setup for booking rules, scripts and the on-call handoff.

Set up the customer-facing route with our Jobber/HCP online booking guide: services, availability, assessments and payment steps.