Night-time phone cover: how to organise the response to calls

For a few weeks, record for each call the date and time, the number displayed, who is calling (customer, tenant, supplier, patient, unknown), the reason in one sentence and what was done about it. This log is a decision-making tool: it shows which calls needed a reaction during the night, which could wait until the morning and which were mistakes.

Keep what you record to a minimum. A call log contains personal data, and the GDPR (Article 5(1)(c)) requires data to be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purposes. The reason for the call is enough, not the details of the caller’s life. Also decide how long you keep this log, depending on what it is used for; the retention of call recordings is covered in a separate article on this blog.

The content depends on the trade. A repair technician receives breakdown calls, an estate agency worried tenants, a medical practice patients, a caterer or a restaurant late booking requests. In each of these trades, calls can be sorted into three categories: immediate danger to a person; a request that is urgent for the business but involves no danger (a breakdown, or damage to be dealt with during the night); and a request that can wait until opening time.

For each category, write a short instruction: what the person answering says, what they ask, what they pass on, to whom and within what time. It is for the professional, who knows the business and bears responsibility for it, to approve these instructions. A switchboard, human or automated, applies the instruction; it does not make it up.

When a person is in danger, the instruction must direct the caller to the emergency services rather than to the professional. According to the page on emergency numbers published by Service-Public.gouv.fr (the French government’s public information portal), in France 15 is the Samu (the emergency medical service), for a medical emergency such as a cardiac episode; 17 is Police secours (the police emergency line), for reporting an offence (violence, assault, theft); and 18 is the fire brigade, for a situation of peril or an accident, in particular a fire or a road accident. 112, which can be used in all European Union countries, directs the caller to the right service depending on the case. These calls are free and geolocated, and the services can be reached 24/7.

In practical terms, the night-time instruction can fit in one sentence: if the caller describes a danger to a person (someone taken ill, fire, assault), invite them to contact 15, 18, 17 or 112 without delay, then pass the message on to the professional. Telephone reception does not make diagnoses and does not replace these services.

Having an employee answer calls at night is not just a matter of adjusting working hours. In France, Article L3122-1 of the Code du travail (the French Labour Code) states that recourse to night work is exceptional, that it takes into account the protection of workers’ health and safety, and that it is justified by the need to ensure the continuity of economic activity or of services of social utility. Under Article L3122-2, any work carried out during a period of at least nine consecutive hours that includes the interval between midnight and 5:00 is considered night work, this period starting no earlier than 21:00 and ending no later than 7:00. It is set by collective agreement; failing an agreement, night work is in principle work done between 21:00 and 6:00 (L3122-20).

Night-worker status depends on regularity: at least twice a week, according to the usual schedule, at least three hours of night work per day, or a minimum number of night-work hours over a reference period (L3122-5). It gives entitlement to compensation, in the form of compensatory rest and, where applicable, pay compensation (L3122-8), and the daily duration may not in principle exceed eight hours (L3122-6). Night work may be introduced or extended by a company or establishment agreement or, failing that, by a sector-wide convention or agreement (L3122-15); without an agreement, assigning staff to night posts requires the authorisation of the labour inspector (inspecteur du travail), after negotiations seriously and fairly conducted (L3122-21). These rules depend on your collective agreement and your situation: have them validated before drawing up a rota. On-call duty (astreinte), which falls under a separate regime, is covered in another article.

Once the log has been kept and the instructions written, the options can be compared on what they require rather than on their price. Forwarding calls to your personal phone takes up your nights and those of the people close to you. An outsourced human answering service puts a person on the line, with the instructions you give them. An answering machine keeps the message, but the caller gets no reply. A voice agent answers based on the information supplied and records the request.

The right choice depends on the volume seen in the log, on the share of calls that require a reaction during the night and on your ability to call back in the morning. If few calls need an immediate reaction, a structured message-taking service may be enough; if many do, the question becomes who can be reached and under what working conditions.

If you opt for a voice agent, Alyas answers 24/7 from the information you provide (website, text, PDF), announces at the start of the call that it is an AI and that the conversation is recorded, collects the caller’s contact details and places the transcript and summary in your workspace. If it does not know how to answer, it says so and offers to pass the request on; the caller can also ask to be transferred to the single number you have defined. Alyas does not detect an emergency on its own: your routing instructions still have to be written. The trial is free for 10 days, with no card required.