Don't Pull a Home Alone: Get Your Holiday Hours Right Everywhere
It’s Black Friday morning. A customer bundles up, scrapes the windshield, drives across town and finds a parking spot (a holiday miracle in itself). Google said you open at 9. They walk up to the door and find a handwritten sign: Closed for the holiday weekend.
They don’t shrug it off. They pull out their phone, and before they’ve even left the parking lot, you’ve got a brand-new one-star review.
Nothing earns a one-star review faster than a locked door nobody warned them about.
Remember the McCallisters? A house full of relatives, one mad dash to the airport, and a headcount that came out right only because it counted the neighbor kid instead of Kevin. They didn’t skip the headcount. They just counted wrong. Holiday hours work the same way. You update them in one place, check it off your list, and leave three other listings home alone.
Do a Headcount: Everywhere Your Hours Live
Your hours live in more places than you think, and customers trust whichever one they see first. Here’s the full roll call:
- Google Business Profile. The big one. It’s what shows up in Google Search and Google Maps, and it’s the first place most people check.
- Your website. The footer, the contact page and any “Hours” section. If you post a holiday banner, take it down when the holidays are over.
- Facebook. Your page’s hours, plus a quick post so your followers actually see the change.
- Apple Maps. Every iPhone user asking Siri “Is it open?” gets their answer here. You manage it through Apple Business Connect.
- Yelp (and Bing, and any industry directories you’re listed on).
- Your voicemail greeting. It’s the one everybody forgets. If you’re closed, your phone should say so.
- The sign on your door. Old school, still counts.
As we covered in The Haunting of Your Homepage, wrong hours are one of the sneakiest ghosts on the internet. You never notice them, because you never have to look up your own hours.
Use Google’s Special Hours (Don’t Touch Your Regular Ones)
Here’s where most people go wrong: they edit their regular hours for the holiday, then forget to change them back in January. Suddenly Google says you close at noon every Thursday until spring. AAAAAHH!
Google has a feature built for exactly this, called special hours. You set hours for one specific date, and your regular hours stay the same. When the date passes, everything goes back to normal on its own.
To set special hours on Google:
- Go to your Business Profile and select Edit profile, then Hours.
- Next to Special hours, click the pencil icon.
- Pick the date. Google often suggests upcoming holidays for you to review.
- Set your hours, or leave it marked Closed.
- Click Save.
One pro tip, straight from Google: confirm your hours for the big holidays even if they’re the same as usual. That tells customers (and Google) that your hours are accurate, not just old.
Don’t Forget the In-Between Days
Thanksgiving and Christmas are easy to remember. It’s the days around them that sneak up on people. Here’s this year’s lineup:
- Thanksgiving: Thursday, Nov 26
- Black Friday: Friday, Nov 27
- Small Business Saturday: Saturday, Nov 28
- Christmas Eve: Thursday, Dec 24
- Christmas Day: Friday, Dec 25
- The week between holidays: Dec 28–30. Are you open? Short-staffed? Closing early?
- New Year’s Eve: Thursday, Dec 31
- New Year’s Day: Friday, Jan 1
And if you’re here in Pennsylvania (or anywhere else it snows), add one more to the list: snow days. Special hours work for those too.
Your Holiday Hours Checklist
Grab a cup of hot cocoa and knock this out in one sitting:
- ☐ Decide your hours for every date above, including the in-between days
- ☐ Set special hours in your Google Business Profile
- ☐ Update your website: footer, contact page and any hours section
- ☐ Update your Facebook page hours and post an announcement
- ☐ Update Apple Maps through Apple Business Connect
- ☐ Update Yelp, Bing and any directories you’re listed on
- ☐ Record a holiday voicemail greeting (and set a reminder to switch it back)
- ☐ Print a sign for the door
- ☐ Tell your team, so they’re giving customers the same answer
- ☐ Set a calendar reminder for January 2nd (ish) to take down any holiday banners and switch your voicemail back
If you read last week’s post, this was the “more on that next week” I promised. Consider your quest log updated.
When to Call In Backup
Even Kevin eventually needed Old Man Marley to step in. It might be time to bring in some help if:
- You’re not sure which directories you’re even listed on
- You can’t remember the login for your Google Business Profile (or who set it up)
- Your website hours live in a spot you don’t know how to edit
- You’d rather spend the holidays with your customers than with a to-do list ← that’s a big one right there
That’s exactly what we do. We’ll update your hours everywhere they live, set your special hours on Google, and make sure nobody gets left home alone.
Not sure how? We’ll update everything for you.
Oh, and what are we doing for holiday hours? I’m so glad you asked, that’s so nice of you to be concerned about what we’re up to. :)
As for Full Armor Marketing, here’s our lineup:
- Closed Thanksgiving Day (we’re thinking of doing a duck breast this year instead of turkey or ham?)
- Black Friday we’ll be checking emails for emergencies, and maybe going to Lowe’s for the good sales.
- Small Business Saturday – we will be supporting the nonprofit we help chair, Men’s Haven, during the downtown Lock Haven “Haven Holidays” shopping event. We will be wrapping presents for free with lots of hot cocoa and fun movies.
- Christmas Eve we’ll probably stop working around noon, then head to church service later.
- Christmas Day is for PJs and no phones. We don’t even let the dogs use their iPaws. (just kidding. We totally let them use them)
- The magical week in the time-space continuum between Christmas and New Year’s, we’ll be working, but also spending time baking, attending the St. John’s Day dinner, and building LEGO.
- New Year’s Eve and Day – we don’t go out (we’re old), so I will be responding to emails.