Calling hours by time zone: a dialer that calls each contact in their local window

Calling hours: what it does for your team

No 7 a.m. wake-up calls

A rep in New York can work a national list in the morning without dialing California contacts before they are awake.

A guardrail, not a reminder

The window is enforced by the queue itself, so Power Dial never serves a contact outside it, even late in a long session.

Local time on every lead

The lead card shows the contact’s local time and highlights it before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., for calls placed outside the queue.

Calling hours, step by step

1. Turn it on per list

   In the list’s Dialing rules, enable calling hours, set the start and end time (overnight windows work) and pick the weekdays.

2. Time zones come from numbers

   At import, each contact gets a time zone from its phone number when the number maps to exactly one zone, which for US and Canadian numbers usually means the area code.

3. The queue checks the clock

   When a rep asks for the next contact, anyone outside the window is held back. If everyone left is outside it, the Dialer says so.

What it does not do

Plain limits, so you can decide before you sign up.

• Calling hours apply to list queues. Keypad dials, the follow-ups queue, calls from a lead page and the Chrome extension are not restricted.
• If a number maps to more than one time zone and you have not set an organization fallback time zone, the contact can be dialed at any time.
• It does not know about holidays or state-specific calling rules; it applies the window you set.

What time can telemarketers legally call?

Between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the called person’s local time under US federal rules, and several states are stricter. Those limits, often called TCPA calling hours, come from the FCC’s TCPA rules and the Telemarketing Sales Rule (47 CFR 64.1200, 16 CFR 310.4), and several states set tighter windows or limit weekend calls. Rapidialer’s defaults (9:00 to 20:00, weekdays) sit inside the federal window, but they are not legal advice: set the window your counsel recommends for the states you call.

State rules can be stricter than the federal window. Florida, for example, bars commercial telephone solicitation before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. at the called person’s location (Florida Statutes 501.616). Read the statute for each state you call; this is general information, not legal advice.

Set an organization fallback time zone in Dialing settings so contacts whose time zone cannot be worked out from their number still respect a window.

Do calling hours apply to B2B calls?

The federal time limits are written for consumers. The FCC’s rule covers telephone solicitations to residential subscribers, and the Telemarketing Sales Rule exempts most calls to businesses (16 CFR 310.6(b)(7)). Many B2B prospects answer on personal mobiles, though, and some state laws reach further, so a time zone dialer window inside 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. is the safe default for business lists too.

Practically, a B2B list works best in office hours anyway (see which hours lists tend to answer). Give it its own window, such as 08:30 to 17:30 on weekdays, and let the queue call by local time so a rep in Boston reaches Denver offices only once they open. This is general information, not legal advice.

How do calling hours work with Power Dial and retries?

The window filters which contact the queue serves next, and Power Dial and retries both draw from that queue. A rep can start on the East Coast in the morning and keep dialing as the day moves west, because contacts only come up once their own window opens.

Here is a Thursday on a list with a 09:00 to 20:00 weekday window and retries on, using the defaults of 3 attempts, No answer after 4 hours and Voicemail after 24 hours. A rep in Chicago saves a wrap-up, and Power Dial counts down 5 seconds before the next call; the rep can skip or cancel the countdown. At 18:30 Pacific a Los Angeles contact does not answer, so the retry falls due at 22:30 their time. That is outside the window, so the contact waits and comes back on Friday after 09:00 Pacific.

A retry due on Friday evening waits until Monday, because Saturday and Sunday are not selected. When nothing callable is left, the Dialer says “Remaining contacts are outside this list’s calling hours”, with the time of the next retry if one is scheduled.

Set up calling hours for a list

Open the list’s settings and choose the Dialing rules tab. Switch on Calling hours, set From (their time) and Until, pick the days with the Mon to Sun chips, and press Save dialing rules. A new window starts at 09:00 to 20:00, Monday to Friday.

Until is the moment the window closes: with 20:00, the last contact is served at 19:59 their time. For an overnight window, set From later than Until, such as 18:00 to 02:00.

Then set the organization fallback. In Dialing settings, the Caller ID & hours tab has a Fallback time zone menu with None (allow) and eleven common zones, from America/New_York to Australia/Sydney and UTC. Pick the zone most of your unmatched contacts live in.

How does Rapidialer pick a contact’s time zone?

Rapidialer reads the time zone from the phone number, once, when the contact is imported from a CSV list or added by hand. A number that maps to exactly one zone gets it, in any country: a Berlin number gets Europe/Berlin and a 602 number gets America/Phoenix. Numbers that the numbering data ties to more than one zone, such as UK mobiles, are left unknown and use the fallback.

Zones are named regions rather than fixed offsets, so daylight saving time is handled for you, including places like Arizona that skip it. To check an area code before you import, try the area code time zone lookup.

What happens when the area code does not match where the person lives?

Rapidialer applies the window for the area code’s time zone, because the number is all it knows. Mobile numbers keep their area code when people move, so a 212 number can belong to someone now living in Los Angeles. The default 9:00 to 20:00 window leaves an hour at each end of the federal 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. limits, so a contact one time zone away from their area code is still called inside them.

Here is how the window plays out on a national list. With a 9:00 to 20:00 weekday window, a rep starting at 11:30 Eastern time on a Tuesday gets Eastern, Central and Mountain contacts at once (11:30, 10:30 and 9:30 their time). Pacific contacts stay held back until 12:00 Eastern. In the evening it reverses: Eastern contacts stop at 20:00 Eastern, while Pacific contacts stay callable until 23:00 Eastern.

Why are calling hours holding back contacts you expected?

Check these before you change the window itself.

• The Dialer says the remaining contacts are outside the list’s calling hours: check that From and Until are written in the contact’s time, not yours.
• Leaving every day chip unselected does not block all days; the window then applies every day of the week.
• Window changes apply on the next contact a rep loads. Nothing needs to be imported again.
• Contacts marked Do Not Call never come up, whatever the hour; they are handled by your internal Do Not Call list, not by the window.

Features that work alongside it

• Power DialSequential power dialing: the next contact is dialed after each wrap-up and a five-second countdown.
• Do Not Call listAn organization-wide internal Do Not Call list that blocks outbound calls to listed numbers.
• Local presenceCaller ID that picks one of your own Twilio numbers with the lead’s area code.

Calling hours: questions and answers