Time zone-based inbox routing for a client service team

Sharing a workflow in case it's useful. Our Client Services team supports clients across all US time zones, and we wanted to track SLAs on an 8 hour time frame. 

What we built:

• 27 time zone inboxes across 12 teammate groups
• Custom fields (Time Zone Inbox, CSM Backup) to drive routing without hardcoding names into rules
• Mirror rules so conversations route to the right TZ inbox while staying visible in the team queue

Biggest lesson: drive routing off custom fields, not teammate names in rules. When someone changes territory, you update one field instead of editing dozens of rules.