Editorial
The Gist
- Customer service strategies. Businesses must efficiently manage surges in real-time customer interactions typical of peak periods, such as holiday shopping season.
- Have a clear goal. Unify the customer experience across channels through technological optimization and integration.
- Prepare to react. Overcome seasonal challenges through continuous learning, team training, awareness and adaptation.
Everyone feels the pressure to deliver during the holiday shopping season, whether it be making last-minute reservations or finding the perfect gift. Businesses must acknowledge these high expectations and ensure that they don’t add extra stress by putting customer service strategies in play. Ideally, they should deliver a smooth, hassle-free experience to their customers.
Customer Service Strategies: Remember Peak Pressure = Peak Stress
Consumers feel that they already have enough on their plates during the holiday shopping season and other peak periods, so the last thing they need is a convoluted process to get answers to routine questions. They expect timely responses across all channels — websites, apps, social media, chat, email and phone — and when things get tricky, they want to speak to someone who understands their situations and can provide a simple, linear solution. That's why it's essential to have solid customer service strategies in place to deal with the added demands and stress.
In addition to being sensitive to customer needs, managing this flood of requests comes with several unique difficulties, including:
-
Increased expectations for a prompt response — 70% of customers are looking for a solution on the very same day.
-
Perks or a personalized service — goodwill gestures, special offers and making exceptions will be courted, particularly during the holiday season.
-
Keeping consistent across channels — customer engagement and experience across your website, mobile, in-store and all social outlets will want to be consistent. Any clashes will cause confusion and add to the already elevated volume of calls.
-
System issues — website crashes and other tech troubles are not unusual under heavy loads.
Providing a consistent customer experience across channels while keeping waiting times down can become a serious challenge during the holiday shopping season. This rings especially true when CX teams are faced with a significant spike in the volume of inquiries.
Onboarding more staff for busy periods may seem like an obvious customer management solution, but throwing bodies at a problem is a weak strategy because the quality of service may dip as a result.
Compared to 2022, industry experts are anticipating a 3.5% to 4.6% boost to holiday shopping in 2023, and according to another Black Friday survey, 46.6% of consumers who plan to shop this holiday season are seeking deals both online and offline. As a result, a clear, effective strategy is necessary to tackle these peak season challenges and ensure that your customer service succeeds at all channels of communication.
Related Article: Marketers: Here’s What to Know Ahead of This Holiday Shopping Season
Use Technology to Optimize the Customer Experience
One of the most valuable customer service strategies is to incorporate time-saving technologies across your entire online presence, which is key to staying on top of an onslaught of customer inquiries.
AI-powered chatbots, for example, are an ideal solution for managing routine requests. They can handle general questions with short, simple answers that don’t require context or an understanding of the customer’s specific situation to be resolved. Delegating these easily-solved requests to automation frees up time for CS agents to focus on more intricate, complex issues that require lateral thinking and a personalized approach.
Training AI chatbots on the most frequently asked questions and queries will enable quick and accurate automated responses to these common questions, which are the main culprit behind service bottlenecks. Data acquired from previous chatbot interactions, such as chat logs and traffic data, can be analyzed to determine trends and tendencies and inform future strategies for accommodating periods of high demand.
Automated chatbots also draw from the same data pool, ensuring a seamless uniformity of solutions across all online channels.
Related Article: 5 Retail Hyper-Personalization Strategies for the Holidays
Use Data Analytics to Predict and Prepare
Another of the most important strategies is analyzing key metrics such as call volumes, frequent issues and requests, wait times, and response rates from previous peak seasons; it is possible to identify trends that help your business forecast what is to come and prepare accordingly.
For example, if long waiting times are flagged as a common cause of complaints, increasing staffing levels during these known busy periods could be a viable solution to mitigating the issue and thereby improving the customer experience.
Smart use of data will help prevent your business from being overwhelmed and put on the back foot during the busiest times.
Related Article: How Generative AI Improves Customer Experience Metrics
Support Your Staff to Excel
While advanced AI can lift a huge burden and remove many time-consuming tasks, the irreplaceable human touch remains invaluable and one of the strongest strategies. Well-trained, motivated staff are indispensable for holiday shopping season success.
It’s essential to centralize empathy and core brand values among your employees. Corporate culture should be instilled in your staff, so they feel guided and purposeful in their actions. Motivating your CS agents to go the extra mile to please the customer has tangible results, such as customer loyalty and the repeat business it brings.
Continuous, open communication between staff and management is also important. Regular feedback from frontline workers on current or developing trends — including what’s working and what isn’t — enables your customer service team to introduce changes to address any concerns before they escalate.
Related Article: 6 Holiday Marketing Strategy Tactics to Remember
Empower Customer Service Agents Through Training
The power of the human touch is often overlooked in the era of automation; good customer service is more than simply delivering a script. Thorough training is vital to giving CS agents the confidence to think laterally and devise unique solutions to customer queries when needed.
Product details, company processes, company values and messaging should be second nature to your CS employees. This fundamental knowledge builds a foundation on which they can think outside the box to come up with unconventional solutions while remaining firmly grounded in company policy and regulations. The additional pressure during peak seasons only emphasizes the importance of this.
Webinar
Sep
25
CMS Briefing: A Live Look at What’s Next in AI-Driven Platforms
Learn how leading organizations are using AI‑driven tools to publish faster, personalize smarter and stay secure.
Register
Webinar
On demand
Ready or Not: How Data-First Organizations Are Unlocking Agentforce Potential
Learn how to cut through the noise, activate Agentforce and build a Salesforce AI strategy that actually delivers.
Watch Now
Webinar
On demand
AI in Customer Service: Faster Resolutions, Happier Customers
Don’t let rising demand burn out your team. See how to build a smarter, more resilient support org.
Watch Now
Webinar
On demand
From Hype to High-Impact CX Strategies That Actually Scale
Turn buzzworthy AI and outsourcing trends into measurable CX wins with fresh 2025 data.
Watch Now
Webinar
On demand
Insights to Action Rethinking the Contact Center for Real Business Impact
Join our exclusive webinar to hear CX executives share their innovative strategies for transforming service delivery.
Watch Now
Webinar
On demand
Accelerating Healthcare Ops with AI
Sign up to see how your peers are putting AI to work — and making it stick.
Watch Now
Proper preparation through training should also focus on the importance of delivering empathetic, solution-oriented customer service. Beyond the aforementioned points, empowering agents to make on-the-spot decisions and apply their creative thinking, within reason, makes room for a personal approach that will resonate with customers. In turn, they will appreciate efforts to cater to their personal circumstances — especially during the hectic holiday season.
Plan Ahead for Peak Season Success
Holiday shopping season and other peak periods are a major stress test of your customer service capabilities. Though demanding, the peak season rewards businesses that see the opportunities it presents. These businesses can rise to the challenge by investing where it matters most — customer service.
Ultimately, consumers remember outstanding experiences during the holiday shopping season that are based on strong customer service strategies. With foresight and investment into the right strategies, you’ll build brand affinity and loyalty that lasts long after the seasonal spike.
Learn how you can join our contributor community.
