In our last post, Seasonal Scheduling: How to Set Up Summer Hours for Your Company and Team in RingEX, we looked at traditional ways to manual-adjust call routing for "Summer Fridays" and team vacations.
But for those who love AI and automation, there is an even easier way. Instead of managing complex schedules or routing customers to a silent voicemail box, you can let RingCentral AIR (AI Receptionist) manage your seasonal front desk. It holds natural conversations, answers questions, and keeps business moving 24/7 while your human team takes a well-deserved break.
Here are the two most powerful ways to deploy AIR this summer:
1. Teach AIR Your Summer Schedule & FAQs
Traditional setups force you to rebuild complex menus whenever your hours shift. With AIR, you simply update its brain.
- How it works: Upload a text document or paste your seasonal website landing page directly into the AIR Knowledge Hub.
- The Result: When callers ask seasonal questions like, "Are you open early on Fridays this summer?" or "When does your holiday shutdown end?", AIR answers them instantly using your exact company guidelines without requiring any manual scheduling changes.
📖 Step-by-Step Guide: For instructions on uploading your summer documents, see Managing skills for the AI Receptionist.
2. Capture Leads and Book Appointments 24/7
Don't make Friday afternoon callers wait until Monday for a response. AIR can capture incoming leads and even text calendar links directly to their mobile devices.
- How it works: Turn on the Lead Capture skill to create short questionnaires for callers.
- The Result: AIR collects their details, books an open appointment slot on your calendar, and pushes that data straight into your CRM (like Salesforce or HubSpot) while your staff is out of the office.
📖 Step-by-Step Guide: Learn how to sync your calendar and set up customized questionnaires by visiting Using Lead capture with the AI Receptionist.
💡 Quick Summer AI Prompt
When configuring your AI Receptionist greeting, keep the tone warm, helpful, and upfront about your schedule.
- Try a custom greeting prompt like: "Hi there! Thanks for calling. Our human team is currently out of the office enjoying our seasonal Summer Friday hours, but I'm our AI Receptionist and I can help book appointments or answer business questions for you right now. How can I help you today?"
Ready to automate your summer?
If you haven't turned on your virtual front desk yet, check out the Setting up your AI Receptionist guide to get your automated system running in minutes.
Team Manual Routing 🤝 or Team AI Front Desk 🤖? Which side are you on this season? Let’s settle it in the comments! 👇