Enter special hours for Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Christmas Eve to Boxing Day and New Year's in Google My Business now, in one sitting, then match the website, Facebook and phone greeting to the same list.

Monday is the first of several

Thanksgiving is on Monday. Between now and the first week of January, most businesses will change their hours for at least five days, and some for many more.

Each change is usually made the week before, in a hurry, on a phone, by whoever remembers. Some get made in one place and not the others. Some never get made.

Google My Business lets you enter special hours for dates ahead of time. All of them can go in this week, in one sitting, along with the matching website text, Facebook posts and phone greetings.

The dates to decide

The fourth is the one that needs thought this year. With Christmas on a Wednesday, many businesses will be deciding about the Monday before it and the Friday after Boxing Day.

Those in-between days are the ones customers cannot guess.

Why customers cannot guess

Customers guess holiday hours from their own experience, and their experience varies.

Remembrance Day is a statutory holiday in BC but not in every province, and many shops open while offices close.

Boxing Day is not a statutory holiday in BC at all, yet many businesses close and many retailers have one of their busiest days of the year.

Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are ordinary working days with very unusual afternoons.

Special hours remove the guessing. Without them, the listing shows your regular hours and leaves the customer to decide whether to trust them.

Decide first, then enter

Most holiday hours go wrong because they are decided late, not because they are entered badly.

Settle every date now with whoever needs a say: staff who want days off, suppliers who close, a landlord whose building locks early. A date still undecided in December is a date that will not be on the listing.

If a date genuinely cannot be decided yet, give it a deadline, mid-November perhaps, and a reminder to enter it the day it is settled.

Entering them in Google My Business

In the Google My Business dashboard, the Info tab has a section for special hours, separate from your regular hours. Add each date, then mark it closed or enter the hours you will open.

Special hours are not only for closing. Enter longer hours too: late opening before Christmas, an early start for a Boxing Day sale, a Sunday you would normally close.

Google often prompts owners to confirm their hours for upcoming public holidays. It knows nothing about your own dates, such as a staff party afternoon or a stocktaking day in January, so add those yourself.

Entering hours early does not stop anybody else suggesting changes, so put a reminder in the calendar to look at the listing, as a customer would, the day before each holiday.

A worked example

A butcher shop on a busy main street takes turkey orders for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and its hours around both holidays change every year.

Last year the changes were made one at a time. The Christmas Eve early close went on Facebook and on a sign in the window, but not on the listing.

People looking for a last-minute roast arrived at four to a shop that had closed at two.

Boxing Day showed the regular Wednesday hours, because nobody had decided in time whether to open. The shop stayed closed.

This year the owner sat down in early October with a calendar and decided every date at once, including longer hours on the two Saturdays before Christmas and turkey pick-up times on December 23 and 24.

The list went into Google My Business as special hours, onto the contact and ordering pages, into scheduled Facebook posts, and onto a card beside the phone with each greeting's wording. It took under an hour.

The website, from the same list

Write the whole list once: every date, open or closed, and any changed hours. That text is the source for everything else.

Put it on the contact page as a short dated list headed holiday hours, rather than as a banner across every page. Add a line near the top of the home page only in the week of each holiday.

Give the list an end date. A reminder for January 2 to take it down belongs in the calendar the day it goes up.

Facebook and the other listings

On Facebook, leave the page's regular hours alone and schedule a post for the week of each holiday instead, written now from the same list. Editing the regular hours means remembering to change them back.

Bing Places and Apple Maps keep their own copies of your hours. Where they accept dated holiday hours, enter them now; where they do not, add them to the day-before reminders.

The phone greeting

The phone is where a holiday closure is most often forgotten, because the greeting is recorded rarely and heard by staff almost never.

Write each holiday greeting now: the days you are closed, when you reopen, and who to call in an emergency, if your business takes emergency calls.

Many phone systems can switch greetings on a schedule. If yours can, set the dates now; if not, attach the script to a calendar reminder for the afternoon before each holiday.

The counter-case

A business that closes on every statutory holiday and keeps normal hours otherwise has less to decide, and can enter its dates in a few minutes.

A business with no premises, such as a mobile trade or a home-based practice, has no door for anybody to arrive at. For it, the phone greeting and the email auto-reply matter more than the listing.

And plans change. Entering hours in October does not stop you editing them in December; it means the default is right if nobody does.

Decide every date now, enter them once, and copy the same list everywhere.

This week

  1. List every date from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day.
  2. Decide each one with staff and landlord.
  3. Enter special hours in Google My Business.
  4. Add longer hours as well as closures.
  5. Put the dated list on your contact page.
  6. Schedule the Facebook posts now.
  7. Write each phone greeting in advance.

Step two is the one everything else waits on. Entering hours takes minutes once the decisions exist; it is the undecided date that ends up wrong on the listing.

What to check once the season is over is covered in holiday hours still showing in January.

Frequently asked questions

Can I set holiday hours in advance?

Yes. Google My Business has a special hours section, separate from regular hours, where you can enter each date ahead of time as closed or with changed hours.

Which dates should I enter this year?

Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, plus any days between Christmas and New Year you close.

Are special hours only for closures?

No. Enter longer or extra hours too, such as late opening before Christmas or an early start on Boxing Day, so the listing shows when you are open.

Why do customers get holiday hours wrong?

They guess from experience, and practice varies. Remembrance Day is not a statutory holiday everywhere, and Boxing Day is not one in BC, though many businesses close.

Should I change my Facebook page hours?

Leave the regular hours alone and schedule a post for each holiday week instead. Editing regular hours means remembering to change them back afterwards.

What about the phone message?

Write each holiday greeting now, with closed days, the reopening date and any emergency instructions. Schedule it if your phone system allows, or set a reminder.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Holiday hours still undecided in October?

Send us your dates. We will enter them on your listing and website and check them before each holiday.

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