Are you looking to display business hours on your WordPress website? Learn how in just three easy steps with our WordPress hours of operation plugin!
Even if you run a successful business, you're probably not open around the clock. As such, you need to let customers know when they can visit your store or expect prompt customer service.
Fortunately, our Business Hours Template makes it easy to add company operating hours to your WordPress website. It serves as a WordPress hours of operation plugin. You can customize the form according to your needs, without the need for any business hours HTML code.
In this guide, we'll talk about how to show your business hours in WordPress with our Business Hours Template. Let's get started!
Why display business hours on your website using a WordPress hours of operation plugin?
If you have a physical store, customers will need to know when they can visit your shop. Otherwise, they may arrive outside of your operating hours and be disappointed.
The same principle can apply to online businesses. For example, 77 percent of online users prioritize speedy online responses above all other customer service actions.
If your users don't receive quick replies, they may start looking elsewhere for products and services. However, if customers can see that they are contacting your business outside of its operating hours, they may be more understanding and willing to wait.
You can also use business hours to show your availability during festive periods. Here is a holiday 'out of office' message example created by the Formidable opening hours plugin:
Including your business' operating hours on your contact page can help set expectations and avoid follow up emails. This is the same method we use to display our support hours (and holidays) in the Formidable help desk.
How to add business hours on your website
Before starting this tutorial, you'll need access to a Formidable Forms + Views account (Plus tier or higher). You'll also want to download the Business Hours Template and upload it to your WordPress dashboard.
Step 1: Customize the business hours form details
To get started, open up the Business Hours Template. It should look like this:
In Build, you can customize the general settings of your WordPress hours of operation plugin. You aren't setting any hours here, just making minor changes to the time slot options.
Start by hovering your mouse over Open Time and selecting More Options → Field Settings. You'll then see new adjustable parameters on the left side of the WordPress opening hours form:
For example, you can select the drop-down menu under Time Format to choose if you want your hours to display in 24- or 12-hour time. You can also enter a custom value in the Step (min) box. For example, if your store opens at 8:15 am, you'll can adjust the increment to 15 minutes.
If you want to change the order of the days, you can hover over the Weekday field and choose More Options → Field Settings. Scroll down to Dropdown Options:
You can drag and drop each day to change the overall order. For example, you may prefer to start your week on Monday instead of Sunday. You can also replace all the weekday names here if your site is in a different language.
Once you're happy with your changes, click on Update and move on to the next step.
Step 2: Add your business hours to the form
In this step, you will add your business' opening hours. Navigate to Entries and select + Add New. Then, you can add your opening hours by selecting days from the drop-down menu and choosing the times you need:
Note that the week starts with Sunday and ends with Saturday. The hours also display in 24-hour time, and you can choose from increments of 30 minutes unless you made changes in the field settings.
After each selection, click on Add to insert another line. Select Submit when you're finished entering all your details in the business hours WordPress form.
Then head to Views to see two the different available formats of your business hours:
The Open Hours View will display the days and hours your business operates. The Open Now View shows whether your company is currently open or closed.
Step 3: Display your business hours on your website
Now you will pick where to display your business hours on your WordPress site. You can choose either the Open Hours or Open Now View, or both.
There are multiple ways to publish a Formidable View. For example, you could display a WordPress business hours widget.
We're going to show you how to insert a View into your website's Contact Us page, so customers can find your operating hours easily.
Open up the page and choose to insert a new block. Select Formidable Views and choose your View from the drop-down menu:
Your opening hours will be inserted, and should look something like this:
If you're not happy with the appearance, you can customize the View to fit your needs. It's highly customizable, but you can create your own version too. If you want to add the Open Now view as well, you can follow the same process.
** Pro Tip ** Great communication is key to any successful business. Consider including your phone number and store address in the "We're Open" message. Also, you could add your email address and social media accounts to the "We're Closed" message, so it's always easy to get in touch.
While visitors are contacting you, why not add them to your mailing list? Read how to connect your Formidable contact forms with MailChimp to turbocharge your online presence!
Conclusion
Accurately displaying your company's operating hours is essential for keeping your customers informed and happy. Fortunately, it's easy to show them on your website with our Business Hours Template.
To recap, adding business hours to your website is easy with three steps:
- Customize your form settings.
- Add your business hours to your form.
- Display your business hours on your website.
Do you want to improve your company website? Check out how Formidable Forms can streamline your site processes and improve your customer interactions!
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Thanks for this feature! Can we do this with Holidays also?
Yes - the same principle can be used to display your holiday schedule based on date fields.