To effectively communicate with your leads, it's crucial that messages are sent at appropriate times. It's important to understand the time zone preferences of both users and leads to prevent messages from being sent outside of designated hours. This article provides guidance on how to optimize the setup of your users and contacts for time zones.
Time zones play a pivotal role in the functionality of the software. From scheduling appointments to setting up available hours on your calendar, the software uses time zones in different ways. Time zone settings are also vital for campaigns, as it determines the wait step, delay within a step, window setting in Campaign Settings, or window set within a specific campaign step.
The following are the areas where time zone settings are applicable:
If you own the account, ensure that the time zone in the business settings is consistent with your actual time zone. You can access this in Settings, save the time zone, and hit ‘Update Address’.
Although leads have their own time zone in the General Info section of the contact information, campaigns will operate based on the location's time zone. Therefore, it is crucial to review the delays, windows, and waits in your campaigns to prevent messages from being sent at the wrong time. Campaigns do not consider the contact's time zone, so communication should always be scheduled within a safe window that considers the possibility of several lead time zones. For instance, scheduling communication for noon CST is secure for all US leads, whereas 9 am EST may not be appropriate for leads in PST or Hawaii.
There is one scenario where the appointment scheduling rules do not apply, and that is when a lead or customer uses the appointment widget to book an appointment in their own time zone. It's worth noting that reminder campaigns are not affected by time zones for appointments, as they are always based on the appointment time itself. Therefore, regardless of whether the appointment is at 2 pm EST or 11 am PST, a reminder will be sent one hour prior to the appointment time.
In case all of your leads and customers belong to a single time zone and there is no requirement for them to choose a time zone, you can select the "Disable Contact time zone" option in Settings → Company. This will remove the lead's ability to choose a time zone while booking an appointment.
