A bakery can be open until noon while its last preorder pickup is at 11:30. A repair shop can accept vehicles on Friday but have no one answering the phone on Saturday. Both businesses can publish accurate holiday hours and still leave customers guessing. A useful holiday update answers a second question: what can a customer actually do during those hours?

Start with one schedule the whole team can use

Make one row for each affected date and location. Record opening and closing times, any earlier cutoff for pickups or appointments, whether phones will be staffed, and when normal service resumes. Ask the person who runs each shift to check it before anyone edits a public listing. If a second location has different hours, write out its schedule separately rather than relying on a single company-wide announcement.

Keep a column for the person responsible for each update. The shift lead can confirm staffing, the website editor can update the location page, and the front desk can change the voicemail. Give one person the final check. Otherwise each team may assume somebody else updated a channel that is still showing last week’s schedule.

Set date-specific hours on Google

Use Google Business Profile’s Special hours for short schedule changes and closures of up to six consecutive days. In the profile, select Edit profile, then Hours, and edit Special hours for each relevant date. Mark a date closed or enter the hours customers can visit. Google recommends confirming official holiday hours even when they are unchanged. Its help page notes that special hours display when the business is set to “Open with main hours.”

Update the places where customers make a decision

Check the website’s hours and location pages, appointment calendar, online ordering system, voicemail greeting, and any marketplace listing you maintain. A holiday banner may tell customers the store closes early, but it won’t stop an ordering system from offering a pickup time the store can’t honor. Check both the message and the controls that determine what customers can book or buy.

Use specific wording. Instead of “Holiday hours may vary,” try: “Friday: shop open 9 a.m. to noon; prepaid orders must be collected by 11:30 a.m. Regular hours resume Monday.” For phone or email support, say when customers can expect someone to respond rather than implying that the inbox is staffed.

Check existing bookings and deadlines first

Changing future availability does not tell a customer who already reserved a slot that the business will close early. Review appointments, scheduled deliveries and confirmed pickups for each affected day. Contact customers whose plans actually need to change, offering a specific alternative rather than asking them to start over. Check scheduled reminder emails as well: a reminder for a canceled appointment is more confusing than no reminder at all.

For a retailer, distinguish the last date to place a holiday order from the last date to pick it up. For a service business, distinguish the time your office closes from the time you stop taking same-day work. If an emergency line stays open, state what it covers and where routine requests should go. Put those distinctions near the relevant button or phone number, not just on a social post.

Run a customer’s test, then clear the seasonal notices

Have someone who didn’t make the updates check them on a phone. Ask them to look up the business in Maps, open the website, and see whether the right dates, hours and available times agree. For a multi-location business, have them switch branches and repeat the check. They don’t need to place an order or submit a booking.

Finally, put a reminder on the team calendar to remove temporary banners and voicemail messages when normal service resumes. Keep the checklist for the next holiday. The schedule will change, but the list of places customers look probably won’t.

What if your posted hours and booking hours differ?

Give each schedule a clear label. A showroom might be open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., while consultations are by appointment only and the last slot starts at 12:30 p.m. Put showroom hours on the location page and show available consultation times in the booking calendar. Tell staff which wording to use so a customer gets the same answer online and over the phone.

A quick check before the holiday

Confirm each location’s schedule and assign an owner. Publish the date-specific hours, apply the matching booking and ordering cutoffs, and review existing commitments. Ask a second person to test what customers see, then schedule removal of temporary notices. When time is tight, start with the channels where a customer can reserve a slot or pay.