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YES

As of 13 August 2026, AI can answer questions about your opening hours.

Most people should hand this to a purpose-built tool.

Can you do it?

5 minutesto a draft.

15 minutesto something you’d act on.

Cost, all in£0

Skill neededchat-fluent

Who has to check ityou

What the alternative costsThe supplied data gives no price for a staffed alternative.

If this goes wrong: a customer arrives when you are closed or misses a service, and your business carries the resulting complaint or lost sale.

What to actually do

  1. Use a tool built for this

    The route this page recommends

  2. Do it yourself

    Second choice

    A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 15 minutes until you can act on the result.

    How to actually do it

    1. Open the page, booking system or internal record that is the authoritative source for your current opening hours.
    2. Gather the regular hours for every location, plus temporary closures, bank-holiday changes, last entry times and appointment-only rules.
    3. Paste that information into the prompt, replacing each bracketed slot, and include the official page or phone number customers should use for updates.
    4. Ask the chatbot to produce answers for common questions such as "Are you open today?", "Are you open on Sunday?", "What time do you close?" and "Are you open on the bank holiday?".
    5. Compare every drafted answer with the authoritative hours source, correcting any missing location, date or exception.
    6. Put the verified answers or source content into your chosen customer-service chatbot and test it with direct, vague and date-specific questions before making it available to customers.
    7. When hours change, update the source and chatbot content, then repeat the same test questions before publishing the change.

    Prompt

    Answer customer questions about our opening hours using only the information below. Do not guess, infer or invent hours. If the question mentions a date, location, bank holiday, special event, last entry, collection deadline or appointment, use the relevant exception if one is provided. If the information is missing or could have changed, say that you cannot confirm it and direct the customer to [official website, booking page or phone number]. Keep replies to two short sentences, state the relevant day and time clearly, and ask which location they mean when more than one location is listed.

Business name: [business name]
Locations and time zones: [locations]
Regular opening hours: [hours by location and day]
Holiday and temporary closures: [dates and details]
Last entry or service times: [details]
Appointment or access rules: [details]
Official source for current updates: [URL or phone number]

    Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

  3. Hand it to a person

    The distant third

    A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

What it gets wrong

  • AI cannot know that your hours changed unless the connected source or knowledge base is updated.
  • AI cannot resolve an ambiguous question about which branch, date or service the customer means without asking for more detail.
  • AI cannot confirm an unexpected closure or live operational problem unless it has access to a current, reliable update.
  • AI cannot take responsibility for the customer who relies on a wrong answer.
  • AI may present an old answer confidently if outdated opening-hours content remains available to it.

Even on a YES, the friction has a name: real time truth and context depth.

How we scored this

Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.

AxisScore (0–2)
Output2
Inputs2
Verification2
Liability1
Effort delta2
Total9 / 10

The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.

FAQ

Can AI tell customers when I am open?
Yes, if you give it accurate opening hours and exceptions. It can answer routine questions, but it cannot know about a last-minute closure unless its source is updated.
Can AI answer questions about bank holiday opening hours?
Yes, if your bank holiday hours are listed separately and clearly. Check each answer against your current operational calendar before customers rely on it.
Will AI know if my opening hours change?
Not automatically unless it is connected to a source that changes with your hours. Update the chatbot's source whenever hours change and test the customer-facing answers afterwards.
What should I give an AI chatbot for opening hours?
Give it the hours for each location, temporary closures, holiday exceptions, last entry times and appointment rules. Also provide the official website or phone number for cases it cannot confirm.

Nearby answers

All Tier-1 support & chatbots rulings

Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.

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