Messaged at 11:40pm: what your chatbot does when the business is closed

It's 11:40pm. Someone found your business searching on Google, landed on your website, or messaged you directly on WhatsApp, and wants to know if you have a slot free, how much it costs, or whether you deliver to their area. You're asleep. If you're lucky, they remember to message you again tomorrow. If not, by the time you open up they've already got their answer somewhere else.

It isn't that you work too little. It's that questions don't wait for you to open, and a small business can't have someone awake to answer them.

Your chatbot doesn't close when you do

It doesn't matter what time the question arrives: the ChatME assistant replies instantly, at 2am, on a public holiday or while you're away, using the same knowledge base it uses during business hours — prices, services, location, whatever you've loaded into the dashboard. It isn't a generic auto-reply along the lines of "we're currently closed": it's the same conversation it would have with them at 11am, just happening at 11:40pm instead.

That's true whether they message you through your website's chat or on WhatsApp: on the Pro and E-commerce plans it's the same assistant answering in both places, trained once.

Where the hours genuinely matter: bookings

Here's the detail that actually makes the difference, and it's exactly where many businesses get nervous about automation: the assistant never confirms an appointment outside your real opening hours. If you have Google Calendar bookings switched on, the chatbot checks two things the moment someone asks for 11:40pm — or for any hour: the opening hours you've configured in the dashboard, and whether that window is already taken in your calendar. It only confirms when both conditions hold; if not, it says so and asks for another time.

That means if your hours cross midnight — a bar that closes at 1am, an emergency service that starts at 10pm — the chatbot respects exactly that schedule, not a simplified 9-to-5 version of it. And if you've already written something into your Google Calendar by hand, there's no double-booking: the appointment is created directly in your calendar the moment the customer confirms, not in a separate sheet you have to reconcile later.

Bookings come with the Basic plan and above (see pricing); it isn't available on Free.

What it doesn't do, and it's worth knowing

The assistant doesn't have anyone awake behind it at 11:40pm to take over if a question gets complicated. When something falls outside what it knows how to answer — or the customer asks to speak to a person — it says so and points them to your contact details, and the conversation stays logged in your dashboard, under Conversations, where you'll find it the next morning. If you also want their details by email, at the address you set in your dashboard, set up a contact form with the keywords your customers tend to use: when they come up in the chat, the assistant asks for the details you choose and sends them to you. That email carries the form's details; you read the conversation itself in the dashboard. There's no live handoff to a human in the middle of the night: what there is, is that no enquiry gets lost, and you pick it up first thing with all the context already gathered.

It also doesn't invent availability that doesn't exist: if you haven't configured opening hours, or the requested time is already taken, it won't confirm it. It would rather say there's no slot than promise one that turns out not to exist.

What it costs to answer at 2am

If the conversation comes through your website chat, nothing different from usual: it's included on every plan, with no per-conversation cost. If it comes through WhatsApp Business, the same applies: Meta doesn't charge for messages your customers send you, nor for service conversations, which is exactly what the assistant does when it replies. The WhatsApp channel is included on the Pro and E-commerce plans.

If someone asks at 11:40pm, answering doesn't cost you a person staying up or an extra euro. What it costs is having your hours configured correctly, so that what the chatbot promises is exactly what you can deliver.

If you get stuck setting up your hours or bookings, email us at info@chatme.es.

*Availability may vary by country.*