Quiet hours and coverWhen somebody is at the desk, and when nobody is

Covered, and not covered, written out

Owner to owner, and plainly. A cover arrangement that is vague about its edges is worse than one with narrow hours.

Covered: Monday to Saturday, 08:00 to 19:00. That is it. Everything below is a consequence of that one line rather than an exception to it.

Not covered: every Sunday, all day. Every day before 08:00. Every day after 19:00. The 25th and 26th of December and the 1st of January, when the diversion stays off and the recorded line names the next covered morning.

When the desk is short-handed, the diversion goes off early rather than late, and the recorded message is changed to name the real reopening time. A ringing line nobody answers reads as a salon that has closed down; a recorded line that names an hour reads as a salon that is simply shut. We will take the second every time, and you should insist on it.

A call that arrives at five past seven

It goes to your own voicemail, because the diversion has already dropped back. The caller hears your voice naming 08:00 the next covered morning. At 08:00 the message is picked up in the first pass, logged with 19:05 as the time it arrived, and dealt with before the morning calls start. If it was a cancellation for the following day, the slot is released then. If it was a booking request, it is called back.

Nothing about the handling of that call depends on anyone noticing it. The 08:00 pass through the overnight messages is the first thing on the covered day, every day, which is why it is written there as a time and not as an intention.