An after-hours answering service that follows your protocol
Masheev answers the calls and texts that arrive after you close, handles the routine ones with your own information, transfers the urgent ones to whoever is on call, and leaves a written summary of the rest for the morning.
- Guided setup
- Unlimited seats
- From $18/mo
A still of the Masheev console: a full inbox of conversations, one of them an AI-drafted WhatsApp reply awaiting a person's approval.
Demo board. Synthetic conversations, real product interface.
What is an after-hours answering service?
An after-hours answering service picks up your business's calls when nobody is in the building: evenings, weekends and holidays. Instead of a voicemail greeting, the caller reaches something that can answer a question, take down a request, and decide whether the matter can wait until morning or needs a person now. The useful part is the protocol: a written set of rules for what counts as urgent and who gets the call.
Masheev is an AI receptionist that does this with software rather than operators. During the after-hours window you configure, it answers calls, SMS and web chat using the hours, services, prices and policies you give it, books through a connected calendar or supported booking tool, and transfers urgent calls to the on-call person you name. Everything else waits in a shared inbox with a transcript and summary. It follows your protocol and does not improvise one, so the quality of after-hours handling depends on the rules you write and test.
Where this helps
The situations this is set up for. Anything outside them goes to your team.
- A customer calls at 8pm with a simple question about tomorrow's hours and gets a voicemail greeting instead of an answer.
- A genuinely urgent call lands in the same voicemail box as everything else, and nobody hears it until the morning.
- Monday starts with a queue of weekend voicemails to transcribe, sort and return before the day's own calls begin.
- The owner carries the business phone home every night because there is no other way to know which calls matter.
What Masheev does
Configured around your hours, services and rules.
Answers during the window you set
You define the after-hours schedule: weeknights, weekends, holidays or a lunch break. Calls forwarded to Masheev in that window are answered with the greeting you write.
Follows a written emergency protocol
You list what counts as urgent, such as a burst pipe or a locked-out tenant, and what the caller should be told. Masheev checks each call against that list and gives only the guidance you approved.
Transfers urgent calls to on-call staff
When a call matches your urgent rules, Masheev transfers it to the number you assign, with routing rules that can point different issues at different people.
Handles the routine calls itself
Hours, directions, prices and policy questions are answered from your knowledge base, so they do not become callbacks. If the answer is not there, it says so and takes a message.
Books for the next open slot
With a connected calendar or supported booking tool, callers can book, reschedule or cancel at night. Without one, Masheev records the request and hands it to your team.
Leaves a morning summary, not a voicemail queue
Each call is transcribed, summarized and recorded in the shared inbox. Your team reads what happened overnight instead of listening to it.
At 9:40pm on a Saturday, a tenant calls a property manager's line about water coming through a ceiling. Masheev recognizes an active leak from the urgent list, tells the caller where the shutoff valve usually is using the approved wording, and transfers the call to the on-call maintenance lead. At 10:15pm another caller asks whether the office is open Monday; Masheev answers from the knowledge base and the call ends there. On Monday morning the team finds both calls in the inbox with summaries, and only the first one needed a person.
How to set it up
Setup time depends on your phone provider and configuration. Test before anything goes live.
Set your after-hours window
Enter the hours you want covered. Then forward your existing number when you close, or forward unanswered calls, depending on the options your phone carrier supports.
Write the urgent list
Describe what counts as an emergency for your business, what the caller should hear, and what can wait. Be specific: the AI applies the rules you give it.
Assign who is on call
Add the number urgent calls transfer to and any routing rules by issue type. Decide what the caller hears if the on-call person does not pick up.
Test at night, then go live
Call the line after hours with a routine question, a booking and an urgent case. Check the transfer and read the summaries before you rely on it.
AI after-hours answering vs voicemail
| Capability | Masheev | Voicemail after hours |
|---|---|---|
| Caller gets an answer to a routine question | ||
| Urgent calls separated from routine ones | By the rules you write | Only when someone listens |
| Urgent calls reach a person at night | Transferred to on-call staff | |
| Booking after closing | With a connected calendar or booking tool | |
| What your team sees in the morning | Transcript and written summary | Audio to listen through |
| Texts and web chat after hours | ||
| Cost | From $18/mo plus usage, same rate at any hour | Usually included with your phone plan |
What it does not do
The limits, stated plainly, so you can decide what stays with a person.
- Masheev is not an emergency service. Your protocol should tell callers with a life-threatening emergency to hang up and call 911, and the AI gives only the guidance you approve.
- A transfer helps only if the on-call person picks up. Decide what the caller hears if they do not, and test that path before going live.
- It applies your urgent list as written. A situation you did not describe may be treated as routine, so review overnight summaries in the first weeks and tighten the rules.
- Diagnosis, quotes for unusual jobs and judgment calls still need a person. Masheev takes the details and hands them over.
Frequently asked questions
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Take the routine calls off your plate
Routine calls and messages handled on supported channels in the hours you set, with a person whenever your rules call for one. From $18/mo.