Santa does not have an Elf that magically updates your holiday hours of operation online. He does need to know if you’ll be open (and serving cookies) on Christmas Eve ... as well as Christmas.
Christmas is a couple days away. New Years is only a few days later. Boxing Day is in between (this does matter). How will customers know when you’re business will be open and when you’ll be closed?
When it comes to holiday hours most restaurants update social media with content that notifies guests about their holiday hours. That's a good move. Keep doing it.
But keep in mind, only a small fraction of your followers will see it. That's an even smaller fraction of ALL of your guests.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CzeSdpFJypg/
Comment: "OK, but which days?!?!?"
The move is to update your holiday hours of operation right now in Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor and anywhere else online that customers go to search for the next meal.
Don’t rely on a post to your Facebook page or Instagram feed to inform people about your holidays hours, chances they won’t see it. Hungry consumers use Siri, Google, Facebook, Yelp, Alexa (and many more) to find out if your business is open and if so, how do they get there.
If you don't update your hours of operation on all the sites, apps and maps consumers use to find information about restaurants, you might be giving then signal that you might not be open.
When someone sees "Christmas holiday might affect these hours" on your Google My Business profile or "Today is a holiday! Tap here to call and confirm hours" on your Yelp page, they may decide just to go patronize a different business instead. They don't have the confidence that you will be open.
When you confirm your holiday hours on Google and Yelp, that angry red turns green, signifying that the business has confirmed their hours of operation for that holiday.
By doing this, you are letting people know who are searching for your business online that you are open and ready for them or closed and wishing them happy holidays. What you want to avoid is the guest who thinks you MIGHT be open, drives over only to find you are closed and locked up. That's how 1-star reviews happen.
NOTE: It doesn't matter if your holiday hours are the same as your regular hours of operations, sites like Google and Yelp want you to confirm those hours because they know your guests need to now.
Go RIGHT NOW and update your holiday hours of operation on Google and Yelp for every single location.
Look, its so important that even Yelp sends you an email to remind you! [Link to email:
And while you're at it, be sure to confirm your hours of operation for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!
And if that task just seems too daunting, use Marqii. It will let you update all your listings for all your stores in the push of a button.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/marqii/
P.S. Send an email to your subscribers too. Cover all of your bases.
If you have any questions, or need help send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
- Rev Ciancio
WHAT DOES REV DO?
*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.
*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.