Calling 23andMe's phone number must be done during regular business hours, as there is no automated system to provide any information outside of that. If you try calling outside of their normal hours, you'll only get a message saying that you've reached 23andMe outside of normal hours and must try back again another time.

It's also important to note that 23andMe is a San Francisco-based company, so it operates on Pacific Time. This can be helpful if you're in the Eastern Time Zone, as it gives you until 8 p.m. on weekdays to call and get someone on the phone. The tradeoff is that it's not possible for most people east of the Missouri River to call before having to go to work, as calls are not available before 8 a.m. Central/6 p.m. Pacific.

If you do need assistance outside of normal hours, you can get it from the website, which offers live chat support with virtual agents even outside of the phone system's hours. However, the phone system does not mention this at all, only saying that you will need to call them back at another time when their system is open.

Given that their virtual agent can work at any time, it seems a bit strange to me that 23andMe doesn't offer any kind of after-hours help over the phone. It makes perfect sense that it wouldn't follow hours beyond basic business hours, as their work isn't the kind that's going to require emergency assistance. But if it can set up a virtual assistant online, it should at least be able to provide some of the basic information to phone customers.

One example is the steps on how to register an account with 23andMe. When you visit the site, you can get full details on how to create an account so that you can make use of one of your kits. If you try the same thing on your phone, you get no details whatsoever. It appears that 23andMe wants use of its phone system to either be connecting with a live agent or nothing whatsoever.

On the plus side, that does limit the interactions a customer has before getting to a representative, which can limit wait times when done correctly. On the other side of the coin, anyone who doesn't have internet access is locked out of contacting 23andMe unless they can make time while the phone lines are open.

Given that, I would probably not use this line as my first course of action. If I knew I was calling with the phone lines available, I'd be more open to using 23andMe's phone service. But without being able to get a response, I'd lean toward not using this phone number unless absolutely necessary.