Check your business hours everywhere customers look

Search for your business on your phone and compare the hours customers see with the schedule your team will follow this week. Check your website, the business profiles you maintain, and any booking page that shows availability. Before editing, note each mismatch, including the location, day, and page or profile. For example: "Saturday: website says noon; approved schedule says 2 p.m."

Set one approved schedule

Ask the person responsible for staffing to confirm regular hours and upcoming exceptions. Record opening and closing times, breaks when customers cannot visit, and dates when the usual schedule changes. Keep a separate schedule for each location, even if most locations share the same hours.

Be clear about what each set of hours describes. Visiting a workshop, calling the office, collecting an order, and booking an appointment may have different availability. An online form that accepts requests overnight does not mean staff are available overnight. Label those differences where customers decide how to contact or visit you.

Keep the confirmed schedule in one shared place. Include the person responsible for it and the date it was last checked. Use that record as the reference for your audit, and update it when the team approves a permanent change.

Check the places customers use

Start with website pages customers use to plan a visit or get in touch: the homepage, contact page, location pages, booking destination, and footer. Look for hours in images or downloadable documents too. Those copies may need separate edits. If a page serves a particular location, compare its hours with that location's schedule.

Then review the business profiles and directories your team maintains. For each one, note the location, the hours shown, who can edit the listing, and whether you have checked the public result after a change. Include booking availability when it affects the times customers can make appointments. Treat each public destination as a separate place to check; changing one does not confirm the others.

Suppose a repair shop plans to close early on a Saturday. Its contact page has the new time, but the footer still shows the regular closing time and the booking page offers later appointments. This is a hypothetical example. The owner would update the footer and ask whoever manages appointments to resolve the later slots, then check both public pages again.

Update regular hours and exceptions

Google's guidance explains that businesses can set and edit the hours shown on their Business Profile in Google Maps and Search. It also says a break can be represented by entering two time periods for the same day. Use that format when it matches the confirmed schedule. Edit your business hours

For a temporary change, Google's Special hours feature lets you set different hours for designated dates while leaving regular hours unchanged. Google says special hours appear when the profile's hours are set to "Open with main hours." Set special hours

For unusual service hours or a longer closure, consult Google's current instructions before changing the profile.

Verify the public information

After editing, reopen each affected page or listing as a customer would. Compare what it shows with the approved schedule, and note when you checked it. A saved change in an editing screen does not confirm what customers can see. If the public information still differs, keep the item open and follow up with the person who can edit it.

Make temporary notices specific: name the date and the hours for that date. If it helps customers plan, say when the usual schedule resumes. "Different hours this weekend" leaves the dates and times unclear. Give the notice a removal date so it does not stay up after the change ends.

For phone or appointment availability, include the time zone when customers may contact you from elsewhere. Ask a colleague to use only the public information to answer, "Could I visit or contact this location at this time?" If the answer is unclear, revise the wording on the page they used.

Assign the next check

Choose an owner to review hours before known exceptions and after permanent schedule changes. When the schedule changes, use the approved record to check the website, maintained profiles, and relevant booking availability.

Close the audit when those customer-facing hours agree with the schedule. Keep unresolved corrections on the list with a person responsible and a follow-up date.