Can I set business hours?

Yes, for each day of the week, in General settings. Simple Chat uses the schedule two ways: the AI talks to customers about when staff are likely to be available for live help, and the hours factor into how conversations are handled during open versus closed periods, together with each person's availability status and your merchant instructions.

Accurate hours matter because the failure mode is unpleasant: the AI promising immediate human help at an hour when nobody is watching the inbox.

Setting them

1. Open Simple Chat in your Shopify Admin.
2. Go to Settings > General, where business hours are listed.
3. Set hours per weekday to match when your team typically handles live support.
4. Save.

Revisit the schedule when you change time zones, move to seasonal hours, or shift coverage to different days.

Hours are the baseline, availability is the person

Business hours describe when the store normally offers live support. Staff availability says whether a specific person is on deck right now. Individuals mark themselves available or unavailable within the framework the hours define, so update both when operations change: shorter holiday hours in General settings, plus staff marked unavailable on days nobody is assigned to chat.

One common mistake is copying your retail storefront hours. If nobody monitors Simple Chat on Sundays, the schedule should say so, whatever the shop sign says. Pair the hours with merchant instructions for after-hours tone, and use temporary FAQs or announcements for exceptions like warehouse closures.