The High Stakes of Peak Season
When it comes to seasonal e-tail, the stakes are high. Sales during peak periods can account for up to 32% of a company's annual revenue, with events like Cyber Monday showing sales numbers 5.5x higher than an average day. While it's a huge opportunity, it's also the biggest stress test for e-tail services. Shopping season brings a surge in order volumes, inquiries, and new customers. With tight delivery windows and high expectations, your customer support will quickly become the backbone that keeps your operations running—or the bottleneck.
A slow response or a frustrating service experience won't just cost you one sale—it costs you future loyalty, brand reputation, and long-term revenue. To thrive under peak demand, you need a system that flexes with volume spikes, supports a diverse customer base, and delivers seamless, omnichannel service. These are the three essential keys to building a support strategy that scales with the rush and keeps customers coming back.
The 3 Keys to Supporting Shoppers Peak Season
Burst Up and Stand Down with Scalable Support
E-tail support needs to change as quickly as shopping trends do. One moment, everything runs smoothly; the next, you're flooded with live chat pings, social media complaints, and urgent order inquiries. Traditional, fixed staffing models can't handle this variability while staying cost-efficient. You either hire and churn through staff each season or stay overstaffed year-round just to support a single seasonal surge. Fortunately, this doesn't have to be a compromise.
Scalability is primarily determined by your support model. Traditional FTE models reside on the inflexible side of the spectrum. Instead, you'll want to use staffing models that can match your variable needs—such as with on-demand agents. On-demand agents are essential here since they let you burst up without taking on unnecessary overhead. Full-time contracts may increase costs over time as you onboard more year-round staff than needed. The goal is efficient coverage that keeps response times low and satisfaction high while only paying for what you actually need.
Stay Ready for New Customers With Multilingual Support
Peak season brings new customers. And the rise of global e-tail makes it likely that your peak-time shoppers are increasingly international. 57% of online shoppers purchase from outside their borders. If your support team isn't equipped to handle inquiries in multiple languages, you risk slowing down your support, losing buyers, and hurting your reputation in new markets. Alienating these buyers can be a huge opportunity cost for your company, with U.S. brands grossing already over $143 million just by localizing for Chinese consumers.
Real-time translation tools help bridge language gaps, powering self-service options like translated FAQs and return policies to handle basic inquiries and reduce ticket volume. But automation alone isn't enough. Multilingual agents are critical for resolving complex issues, QAing AI-driven tools, and ensuring translations align with customer expectations.
Coordinate Your Channels with an Omnichannel Strategy
During a shopping surge, customers don't just reach out more, they tend to reach out more widely too. Research shows that 73% of consumers will use multiple channels during their shopping journey. 64% of them expect a smooth experience across all channels.
With limited stock items and seasonal deals on the line, these consumers are often more persistent about their follow-ups. Some will DM you on Instagram about shipping delays, while others will use live chat to ask about restocks. If your support system treats these channels as separate silos, you're setting yourself up for inefficiencies, miscommunications, and frustrated customers.
To prevent breakdowns in support, you need both the right tools. Seamless handoffs between channels should feel natural, not like hitting reset. A unified platform like Zendesk or Gorgias offers omnichannel workspaces where your agents can manage communications across platforms, so customers don't have to repeat themselves.
But if your agents aren't equipped to use these tools effectively, you'll still deliver a disjointed experience. Agents need to be trained to navigate these tools efficiently. Whether a customer moves from live chat to email or DMs to a phone call, agents should have policies and training in place to make any escalation smooth and without lost context.
The Benefits of The Right Strategy
A strong support strategy does more than just protect your business during peak seasons. These strategies will strengthen your business throughout the year.
Scalable support ensures that no customer inquiry is left unanswered, no matter how intense the rush. Multilingual service keeps international customers moving through your buy flow and prevents language barriers from slowing you down. And omnichannel integration creates a frictionless experience that meets customers wherever they are—without frustrating repetition or disjointed conversations.
Overall, peak season may be a pressure test, but your payoff isn't just a successful holiday season—it's long-term loyalty, stronger retention, and a reputation for reliability that keeps customers coming back long after the rush is over.
