What is away message?

An away message is what the agent tells a visitor who asks for a person while nobody on your team can reply live: outside business hours, or always, for a team that answers by email. It replaces the promise of a live reply with something true, "Our team is offline until Monday at 9:00" or "We reply by email within one business day", and usually asks for an email address so the reply can go somewhere.

It matters because the alternative is a silent handoff. A visitor told "a teammate will join shortly" at midnight waits, then leaves, then does not come back. A visitor told when to expect a reply, and asked for an address, is a lead kept. The 25 offline message examples show wording for different teams; the common thread is a specific time, one next step and no apology longer than the message itself.

Where it runs out: the away message only works if the status it reports is true, which means business hours that match reality and a team that does answer the email. It resolves nothing by itself; the AI agent keeps answering around the clock, and the away message covers only the moment a question needs a person. Products differ on whether the message is a fixed string, a generated line with the real reopening time, or both, and on whether it collects an address or merely apologizes.