AI Search Holiday Hours Exception Checklist for Small Businesses

When to use this checklist

• A holiday, weather event, staff shortage, seasonal service window, or local event changes normal business hours.
• Google Business Profile, website footer, booking page, service pages, phone script, and chat widget may now disagree.
• An AI search answer or chatbot has quoted old hours, invented emergency availability, or made an unsupported booking promise.

STOP PUBLISHING: do not publish or ask AI to draft hours, closures, emergency availability, appointment windows, or response-time promises unless the approved source record is current and an owner has reviewed the wording.

Copy/paste special-hours source card

AI search holiday / special-hours source card

Business/location:
Normal hours source URL:
Special-hours date range:
Timezone:
Closed / limited hours / emergency-only / appointment-only:
Customer channels affected: website / GBP / booking page / phone script / chatbot / email autoresponder / marketplace profile
Approved public wording:
Pages or profiles that need updating:
Internal scripts that need updating:
Owner reviewer:
Review completed at:
Rollback date/time:
Recheck date/time after publishing:
Evidence link or screenshot:

Safe public wording template

Special hours notice

For [date range], our [office / showroom / phone / service] hours are [approved hours].

Urgent requests: [approved emergency/after-hours wording, or "not available"]
Appointment requests: [approved booking-window wording]
Next normal-hours update: [date/time]

Please use [approved contact path] for the most current status.

Do not add emergency, same-day, weekend, holiday, refund, fee, travel, or appointment guarantees unless they are explicitly approved in the source card.

AI search audit prompt

You are auditing special-hours and availability wording for a small business. Use only the supplied source card, public URLs, and owner-approved wording. Flag any unsupported claims about business hours, holiday hours, emergency availability, appointment windows, response times, travel/service-area coverage, fees, or reopening dates. Return: (1) safe public wording, (2) pages/profiles to update, (3) AI-search answer risks, and (4) recheck tasks. Do not invent hours or availability.

Quick update checklist

• Update the source page or footer first, then link other pages to that source.
• Update Google Business Profile special hours and appointment links if the business uses them.
• Check booking widgets, chatbots, autoresponders, marketplace profiles, and call scripts for old wording.
• Add a rollback date so temporary hours do not stay live after the holiday or event.
• Recheck one AI-search answer or chatbot answer after public pages update; record what source it quoted.