How online retailers can get the most out of the peak season: 10 tips for customer care

The approach of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Christmas shopping season is marked every year by a sharp increase in customer service inquiries. In the 2025 peak, US shoppers spent $44.2 billion online during Cyber Week alone, and contact centers felt it: voice calls rose 35% year on year on NiCE's platform. Outstanding customer service during this peak period is crucial to retaining customers and increasing sales. We have put together some last-minute tips to help retailers provide exceptional customer experiences during the busiest time of the year.

1. Make accurate forecasts

Accurate forecasts are crucial to successfully managing demand spikes during the peak season. Retailers should carefully plan all marketing and sales campaigns and the calculated sales volumes. When new products are introduced, historical data and AI-based algorithms can help predict sales trends and optimize the fulfillment strategy.

2. Expand your support team

Retailers should ensure that their customer service is adequately staffed to handle the increased volume of inquiries during the busiest time of the year. It is important to recruit and train additional employees in advance so that they can provide efficient and competent responses. Colleagues from other departments can also be integrated into the customer service team on a temporary basis to help out during this busy time.

3. Plan for overcapacity

To ensure that customer service works well during peak periods, retailers should provide additional support and consider hiring an external call center on a temporary basis, for example. Some of these providers also offer support in the evenings and on weekends, thus extending the retailer’s contact hours and reducing the pressure on internal teams. In addition, certain providers can take over a specific contact channel, such as phone, email, or chat, so that the in-house team can focus on the other channels.

4. Offer multichannel support

Every customer has different preferences for contacting a retailer, and those preferences shift with the problem: 59% of consumers say their preferred service channel depends on the situation. Online stores should therefore offer a variety of communication channels, including email, phone, live chat, social media, and messaging apps like WhatsApp.

5. Invest in self-service

Many customers prefer to find their answers/solutions themselves rather than contacting customer service. In the same Five9 study, 86% of consumers said they explore self-service options before reaching out to support. By offering them this option, for example with a self-service portal containing FAQs, retailers can improve the customer experience and take the pressure off the customer service team.

6. Use AI and automation for FAQs

AI-powered chatbots and automated email responses are efficient ways to handle frequently asked questions, and retailers are leaning on them: AI-handled inquiries rose 77% year on year during the 2025 holiday peak. These technologies not only provide fast and accurate answers, but also continuously improve through learning and adaptation. This does not make it completely impersonal. Hybrid AI bots combine the advantages of automation with human control and hand over complex or sensitive requests to a human agent without the customer having to start again. That matters: 72% of consumers are open to AI-powered interactions, provided they can escalate to a human. By automating routine requests, the customer care team is relieved and can concentrate on more demanding tasks.

7. Proactively communicate

With the help of data analysis, you can anticipate customer needs and proactively contact customers before problems arise. For example, keeping customers informed of possible delays or other issues helps build trust and reduces the number of incoming inquiries.

8. Monitor response times

Retailers should regularly monitor the response times of their customer care team and work on targeted improvements. For example, introducing shift systems or outsourcing can help to effectively manage peak loads. During busy periods, it may also be useful to shorten telephone hours and ensure that emails are processed early in the morning to avoid duplicate customer requests (e.g. if a customer calls after sending an email request before your team has been able to process the email).

9. Monitor customer feedback

Customer feedback, complaints and questions are relevant tools for finding out where content on the website can be improved or which products should be better listed. This will improve the customer experience and reduce the number of calls. Tools such as virtual fitting rooms can also play an important role here.

10. Switch on hybrid AI customer service before the rush

Hiring and training extra agents for a few weeks is expensive and slow. A hybrid model scales faster: AI resolves the routine contacts end to end, such as order status, delivery questions and return requests, across email, chat and phone, while native agents take over the moment a conversation needs judgment or empathy. Set it up well before peak, so the AI is trained on your products, policies and order data by the time volumes spike. That is how hybrid AI customer service keeps response times flat when inquiries double.

Jeroen Leenders, co-founder of Salesupply, is certain: “These approaches enable online retailers to provide exceptional customer service even during the busiest times of the year. At Salesupply, we believe that combining human expertise with advanced technology is the key to outstanding customer service.”