Why Does AI Show Incorrect Business Hours, and How Can a Local Business Fix Them?

Where do assistants get hours from?

Because each assistant leans on different sources, a business can be right in one and wrong in another. Fixing only Google is a common reason for errors that persist elsewhere.

Why are hours wrong?

• Special hours not set for public holidays, seasonal changes or temporary closures.
• Suggested edits. Google can apply changes suggested by users or its own systems. Owners need to review these in their profile, since wrong suggestions sometimes go live.
• Stale directories. Old listings on directories and data aggregators feed other sites and assistants.
• Hours on the website only as images, or in a PDF menu, which assistants cannot read reliably.
• Several sets of hours. A kitchen closing earlier than the bar, a clinic's walk-in hours versus appointments, or a pharmacy counter inside a store.
• Old pages and posts that mention previous hours, such as a "new summer hours" post from two years ago.
• Multiple locations mixed up, especially where branches have similar names.

How do you fix hours, in order?

1. Google Business Profile: set regular hours and special hours, and add "more hours" types where relevant, such as delivery or pickup. Review and reject any incorrect suggested updates.
2. Apple Business, Bing Places and Yelp: set the same regular and special hours.
3. Your website: show hours as text on the contact or location page, with separate hours for departments and services. Remove or update old posts about previous hours.
4. Directories and aggregators: update the listings cited in answers for your area, and any data aggregator that supplies local directories.
5. Social profiles: keep hours consistent there too.
6. Retest in each assistant after a week or two, and again after the next holiday.

Set holiday hours at least a few weeks ahead. Assistants that search the web need time to pick up the change. Temporary closures need their own handling, covered in how to mark a temporarily closed business so AI gives the right answer.

What schema markup should I use for business hours so AI answers get them right?

Use the LocalBusiness structured data that Google documents, with openingHoursSpecification. Google's documentation gives these rules:

• List regular hours by day, with opens and closes times.
• For hours past midnight, use a single specification, such as opening at 18:00 and closing at 03:00.
• To show a business open 24 hours, set opens to "00:00" and closes to "23:59".
• To show a business closed all day, set both opens and closes to "00:00".
• For seasonal or holiday hours, add validFrom and validThrough dates.
• For departments with their own hours, such as a pharmacy inside a store, use the department property with its own hours.

Two cautions. Structured data must match the hours visible on the page. And it supports, rather than replaces, your Business Profile, which Google's AI features rely on most for hours. Markup is useful for other assistants reading your site, but visible text and profiles do most of the work.

Why does ChatGPT describe our support team as unavailable after business hours?

Usually because your website describes only office hours, and nothing says support is available at other times. If your contact page says "Monday to Friday, 9 to 5", an answer about after-hours help will say support is closed. It may say so even if you run a 24-hour chat or emergency line.

To fix it:

• List each support channel with its own hours in text: phone, chat, email, emergency line, and the time zone.
• State after-hours options clearly: "Emergency support is available 24 hours a day on [number] for customers on [plan]."
• Keep help centre pages public, since search crawlers cannot reach pages behind a login, so those pages usually cannot inform the answers other people get.
• Use consistent wording across your site, profiles and app store listings.
• Consider structured data for contact points. Schema.org's ContactPoint type can describe a support line with its available hours.

How do you monitor hours over time?

Check the questions customers ask, such as "Is [business] open now?", "[Business] hours Sunday" and "[Business] holiday hours". Check them in each assistant monthly, and in the week before each major holiday. Record which source each answer cites. Businesses with many locations should sample several locations each month rather than checking only the flagship. Confirming that a correction has taken effect is covered in how to tell whether an AI error was corrected or is still appearing.

What might an illustrative fix look like?

Consider an illustrative restaurant that closes on Mondays and whose kitchen closes an hour before the bar. Diners report being told by ChatGPT that it is open on Mondays. They also report being turned away at 10pm after Gemini said it was open until 11. The owner finds that Yelp still lists Monday hours from before a schedule change. The Business Profile shows bar hours only, and the website's hours are in an image. The owner updates Yelp, adds kitchen hours as "more hours" on the Business Profile, and puts both sets of hours on the website as text, with matching markup. Two weeks later, the Monday error has gone from ChatGPT's answers, and Gemini's answers mention the earlier kitchen closing.

What do people ask about AI and business hours?

Why does Google change our hours without asking?

Google can apply suggested updates from users or its systems. Review your profile regularly and reject wrong suggestions.

Do we need structured data if our Business Profile is correct?

It helps assistants that read your website, and it is quick to add. The profile and visible text matter more.

What if customers were turned away because of a wrong answer?

Apologise, explain that the hours came from an outdated listing, and fix the source the same day. If the customer leaves a review, a calm reply noting the corrected hours helps future readers and assistants.

How early should we post holiday hours?

At least two to three weeks ahead, on all profiles and your website.

Why are hours right in Google but wrong in ChatGPT?

They use different sources. Check Yelp, Bing Places and the directories that ChatGPT cites.