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Check Your Hours Before the Holidays

About 30 minutes

Holiday hours trip people up every year. A customer sees "open" online, drives over and finds a locked door. Sometimes that ends in a bad review. It is easy to prevent. Write your hours once, then copy them to five places. It takes about 30 quiet minutes. Use the steps below as your checklist.

You need: your Google login and your login for each place you list.

Step 1. Write your holiday hours once

Make a short list in one spot, like a note on your phone. For each day you change, write down:

  • The date.
  • Whether you are closed, open normal hours or open short.
  • The opening and closing times, if they are different.
  • Anything customers need to know, like "emergency calls only."

Do not forget the days around the holiday. The day before, the day after and the weekend can change too. Common ones to check are Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The same list works for any holiday, like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.

This list is your master copy. Every place below gets checked against it.

Step 2. Set special hours on Google

Google calls this "special hours." On a computer:

  1. Go to business.google.com and open your profile.
  2. Select Edit profile, then Hours.
  3. In the Business hours section, next to Special hours, select the Edit pencil.
  4. Choose a date. Select Review to confirm a date Google suggests, or Add a date to enter your own.
  5. If you are open, uncheck Closed and enter your hours. If you are closed all day, leave Closed checked. To add a second set of hours, such as a lunch break, select More, then Add hours.
  6. Select Save.

Two limits from Google. Special hours work for a closure of up to 6 days in a row. If you will be closed 7 or more days, or you do not know how long, mark the business Temporarily closed instead. Also, special hours only show if your regular hours are set to Open with main hours.

When you are done, search your business name on your phone and look at the hours it shows for each holiday date. Edits sometimes take a while to show up, so look again the next day. Google's page is How to set special hours.

Step 3. Update the other four places

  1. Your Facebook page. Change the hours in your page's info section. Menus move around, so look for the word "Hours." Then put one short post up that says the holiday hours plainly. It reaches the regulars who never open the info section.
  2. Your Instagram. Put the hours in your bio, or share one clear post. A short line works: the day, and closed or the shorter hours.
  3. Your website. Update the hours everywhere they appear, including the footer and the contact page. If someone else manages your site, send them your list.
  4. Your directories. Check Apple Maps, Bing Places and Yellow Pages, plus Foursquare, whose data feeds other apps, and any booking or delivery site that lists you.

Step 4. Say it in a post

Copy this, fill in the blanks, and post it on Facebook, Instagram and your Google profile:

Holiday hours: We will be [closed / open from X to Y] on [date]. We are open our normal hours on [date]. Thank you for your business, and happy [holiday] from all of us at [business name].

Use only the dates and times from your master copy. If you use AI to write the post, give it your list and tell it to use only those dates and times. See How to Use AI to Write Your Marketing Without It Making Things Up.

If you run a restaurant

Add special hours for every holiday you change, including the days you open late or close early. If your kitchen closes before your doors do, say so in your posts. Then post the same hours on Facebook and Instagram so a regular who never opens Google still sees them. Nobody should drive over to a dark door. For more, see Marketing a Restaurant in the West Valley.

If you are a plumber, electrician or HVAC company

When something breaks over the holidays, people search on their phones and call whoever looks open. So tell them.

  • Add special hours for each holiday date.
  • If you take emergency calls, say so, and say when.
  • If you do not take emergency calls, say that too.
  • Make sure your voicemail says the same thing as your profile.

A clear answer helps the customer, and it saves you a missed call. For more, see Marketing an Electrician, Plumber or HVAC Company.

Do it early

Set your holiday hours a couple of weeks ahead, not the day before. Put a reminder on your calendar for each season, and keep your list. Next year you can copy it and change the dates.

Check your work

  • Search your name on your phone. Do the holiday dates show the right hours?
  • Do Facebook, Instagram, your website and your directories say the same thing?
  • Have you told anyone who answers the phone?

For the full check on your name, address and phone number as well, see Make Your Name, Address and Phone Number Match Everywhere.

If you would rather hand this off

Holiday hours go wrong when five accounts need five edits. You tell us once what is changing, and we update your Google profile, website, social accounts and listings so they match. We never post hours, closures or specials you have not told us. See our listing consistency service, or get started.