The countdown to Black Friday Cyber Monday has begun, and the holiday rush isn’t far behind. For support teams, this can be a make-or-break moment that defines how customers remember your brand. Whether you’re fine-tuning your workflows or reinforcing your team, now’s the time to get your peak season support playbook in order—and the Let’s Talk About CX podcast definitely delivers.
In the latest episode, Vanessa Onyema (Social Media Executive), Melissa Huertas (General Manager), and Clement Brown (Customer Success) discuss how to help your support teams brave the incoming surge of BFCM traffic and how they can make it to the clearing of satisfied customers on the other side.
What operational pitfalls do eCommerce businesses often overlook?
As the holiday surge approaches, many brands believe they’re ready for the influx—until BFCM hits, and cracks start to show.
What often derails operations isn’t a lack of effort, but a lack of foresight. The LTVplus team highlighted several recurring mistakes that even seasoned eCommerce brands continue to make when preparing for peak season.
1. Underestimating volume and complexity
Melissa shared her observation on how businesses tend to forecast support volumes incorrectly. While it’s easy to assume that last year’s numbers will predicate this year’s outcomes, BFCM traffic rarely follows a simple pattern.
A viral product, a new marketplace listing, or a boosted ad campaign can multiply demand overnight. The real challenge isn’t just handling more orders—it’s managing the complexity that comes with them: higher ticket volumes, overlapping channels, and customer expectations for instant support.
2. Late preparation and reactive planning
Many businesses don’t begin serious peak season planning until just a few weeks before BFCM. By this time, the window for proactive adjustments has already closed. Melissa pointed out that businesses tend to not train staff early enough, which forces teams into firefighting mode.
What does this look like? Rushing to hire, training on the fly, and patching process gaps mid-storm, that’s how.
3. Overlooking shipping and return readiness
Even if the front-end experience shines, fulfillment bottlenecks can undo months of preparation. Delayed deliveries, stockouts, and confusing return policies are among the quickest ways to erode trust during BFCM.
Melissa also observed that teams often underestimate how many inquiries stem from post-purchase friction (“Where’s my order?” or “How do I return this?”) due to not being able to foresee what’s mostly going to happen once BFCM hits.
This leads to teams failing to scale logistics and support hand in hand. Reviewing carrier capacity, return workflows, and refund processing times ahead of the surge can prevent a cascade of avoidable customer complaints.
4. Not stress-testing the systems they have in place
Technology is only as strong as its weakest integration. During peak season, even minor glitches can translate to lost revenue and frustrated customers. These may sound familiar to you: a slow-loading checkout page, delayed API calls, or an overwhelmed CRM.
Another huge miss Melissa brought up is how businesses tend to not stress-test the systems they have, such as their:
- eCommerce platform
- Helpdesk
- Payment gateway
- Fulfillment integrations
It’s easy to be complacent when your existing systems are working well for you. But what we want to emphasize here, is that BFCM is a different beast. Identifying performance limits in advance is far less costly than discovering them in the middle of your biggest sales weekend.
Key takeaway: The brands that thrive during BFCM don’t just plan for more. They plan for different things. They anticipate what might break. They build buffers and train their teams to respond with agility instead of panic. It’s showing up to battle with a well-prepared strategy to back up your weapons.
What are the most damaging customer-facing challenges during BFCM?
Shopping is a largely emotional experience. Even the smallest friction point can quickly escalate into reputation risk. From order anxiety to broken discount codes, here are the most damaging customer-facing challenges that can make (or break) your brand’s peak season experience.
“Where is my order?” tickets
Few messages inspire more dread in a support inbox than “Where is my order?” And during BFCM, these tickets flood in by the thousands.
And unfortunately, according to Clement and his experience, those are the types of tickets that businesses will receive most often. He then explains that it’s due to how shipping networks are strained, warehouse teams are overextended, and carriers face unpredictable delays.
At the end of the day, customers don’t want logistics jargon—they want clarity and reassurance. Having real-time tracking integrations, proactive status updates, and transparent communication protocols helps prevent panic that drives “Where is my order?” (WISMO) tickets in the first place.
Not having a proper return infrastructure
Returns are inevitable during the holidays, and yet, many businesses treat them as an afterthought. As Clement reminds us, mistakes happen. Customers order the wrong size, receive duplicate gifts, or encounter shipping errors.
But when the return process is cumbersome or confusing, the only returns you won’t be receiving will be your customers. A resilient return infrastructure is a seamless experience. Automated return portals, pre-paid labels, and clear refund timelines all play a part in maintaining goodwill.
Check out this resource for an even deeper dive: How to Manage and Reduce Your BFCM Returns
Errors and complications with discount codes or coupons
Promotions are the heartbeat of BFCM. In fact, as Clement emphasized, that’s THE reason why customers are shopping during BFCM in the first place. However, they also trigger a wave of support requests.
Customers reach out when discount codes fail at checkout or don’t stack as expected. Others even question whether they can apply a new code retroactively to a purchase made hours before the sale went live.
For support teams, this can create an emotional flashpoint. Customers feel cheated, even when the issue is technically policy-based. The fix lies in preparation, ensuring:
- Promotional rules are crystal clear
- Rolling out marketing materials before the promotional season
- FAQ content is updated
- Agents are fully briefed on discount mechanics.
Customers’ demand for humans over bots
Automation can be a lifesaver during peak season—but only when it enhances the human experience, not replaces it. As chatbots handle routine queries, customers with complex issues often feel trapped in loops of irrelevant responses.
“ ‘Hey, I cannot get to a human. The robots are not helping me, I need to speak to someone.’ You might have a lot of those (interactions) coming in as well,” Clement warns.
Over-reliance on automation risks result in alienating loyal customers when empathy is needed most. The key is balance. Use AI to triage and accelerate, not to deflect. Offering an accessible path to a live agent shows customers that while your brand is efficient, it’s still deeply human.
Key takeaway: Every customer interaction during BFCM is a trust checkpoint. The brands that win are the ones that design their support systems not just to handle volume, but to deliver reassurance, empathy, and transparency when it matters most.
How to achieve operational readiness for peak traffic
Peak success isn’t built at the last minute. Cramming doesn’t work when it comes to building BFCM success. Here’s a quick rundown of concrete tips and actionables to help you and your team achieve operational readiness.
- Review historical BFCM data for critical insights. Looking at last year’s data is all about identifying vulnerabilities. Did response times spike? Were there shipping delays at certain times of day? Did promotions trigger a flood of discount-related tickets? Treat that information as your “source of truth.” It’s the foundation for setting realistic staffing plans, refining automation rules, and prioritizing which customer pain points to address first.
- Start with people and processes. No matter how sophisticated your tools are, people remain your most valuable asset. If you anticipate needing additional support, secure it early, ideally by late Q3. Melissa shares, “If you need to secure additional support, do that early on. Don’t wait until November. Make sure you’ve trained them well.”
- Ensure availability of supplies. It sounds obvious, but yet it’s one of the most common mistakes. As Melissa stressed, running out of stock during BFCM is a big no-no. Customers who encounter “sold out” messages don’t wait—they move on to competitors especially if they’re in a hurry. Beyond inventory levels, this includes ensuring adequate supplies for packaging, printing, shipping, and returns. Every bottleneck downstream affects customer experience upstream. Keeping suppliers aligned and over-preparing your stock can make the difference between chaos and continuity.
- Inventory and fulfillment need to be laid out properly. When warehouses are unprepared for the spike, mis-picks, delayed shipments, and split orders multiply. A best practice is to simulate your fulfillment process under peak load: test how quickly items move from order to dispatch, and identify where human or system delays occur.
- Optimize customer service for seamless communication. During BFCM, clarity and responsiveness are everything. That means ensuring every communication channel is fully synced and monitored. Implementing unified inboxes, automated status updates, and escalation alerts keep everyone aligned. More importantly, make sure that agents have real-time access to information about inventory, order status, and promotions.
- Create a playbook. Along with communication, consistency is power. Melissa suggested making a detailed BFCM operations playbook which ensures every agent and team member knows exactly what to do, when to escalate, and how to communicate. This playbook should include updated FAQs and pre-approved responses, clear escalation paths, real-time updates from logistics and marketing, and common troubleshooting guides (for orders, returns, and discounts). When issues arise (and they will) the playbook allows teams to pivot quickly and respond in a unified voice. It prevents confusion, maintains consistency, and reinforces confidence in your brand’s reliability.
Key takeaway: Operational readiness is about aligning people, processes, and communication. The brands that plan early, document clearly, and empower their teams to act decisively are the one that keep customers (and momentum) throughout the entire peak season.
What are some best practices for flexible peak season staffing?
The difference between scrambling to fill seats and delivering exceptional service often comes down to timing, flexibility, and foresight. A dynamic staffing strategy (built on data and foresight) ensures that when demand spikes, your support operations scale effortlessly with it.
Hire early
When it comes to peak season staffing, it’s all about timing. “Overpreparing is better than experiencing the surge and not having enough people to answer customer inquiries,” Melissa shares.
Early recruitment allows time for proper onboarding, scenario-based training, and cultural alignment. It also reduces stress for your existing team, who otherwise have to carry the burden of training new hires while managing growing ticker queues.
Leverage the flexibility of hybrid workforce
Companies can right-size their operations in real time, scaling up or down based on demand forecasts drawn from historical BFCM data). This hybrid model ensures agility without compromising service quality.
Melissa cites an example: Personal staff can handle escalations and quality assurance. On the other hand, seasonal agents can take on the volume.
How do you create a unified (and high-performing) customer support strategy?
Establish a clear line of communication
This means proactive knowledge sharing, regular briefings, and scenario-based updates that equip everyone to handle whatever customers might throw their way.
Clement shares an example:
- The marketing team is sending out emails or different promotions that the CS team isn’t informed about.
- A customer would then reach out, but bring up information that you as CS aren’t aware of.
- And if you’re not familiar with what the Marketing team is sending out, then that would already birth a level of distrust in the customer communicating with you.
Ensure KPIs are clearly aligned
Before peak season begins, every team member should know what success looks like. Some examples of metrics to be measured include:
Tracking the right KPIs alongside strategic feedback collection provides the clearest roadmap for continuous improvement.
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): CSAT reflects how customers felt about their interactions. It’s not just the score that matters—it’s the why behind it. The comments customer leave provide context: Was it an issue with the agent’s handling? A gap in training? Or perhaps a glitch on the website? Reviewing these insights helps pinpoint where improvements are needed, whether in customer service, operations, or technology.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS captures long-term loyalty and advocacy. Clement highlighted how valuable it is to target surveys to repeat or high-value customers—those most familiar with your brand. Their feedback sheds on what keeps them loyal and what you could improve, turning satisfied customers into active promoters.
- First Contact Resolution (FCR): FCR measures how efficiently issues are resolved within a single interaction. Ideally, straightforward inquiries such as “Where is my order?” should rarely require multiple touchpoints. A high FCR rate signals that your support team is well-trained, your workflows are clear, and your systems are working smoothly.
- First Response Time (FRT): Speed matters, especially in real-time channels like chat. Clement pointed out that if response times stretch beyond an hour, it’s no longer a chat—it’s an email conversation. This can frustrate customers who expect immediate engagement. Maintaining a quick response time (ideally within 30 seconds for chat) directly contributes to higher CSAT and smoother customer experiences.
- Resolution time and backlog volume: Tracking how long it takes to close tickets from start to finish (and how much backlog build up) offers insight into operational efficiency. One key recommendation was to maintain at least partial weekend coverage, even for a few hours, to prevent Monday morning bottlenecks. This simple adjustment can drastically improve response rates and reduce team stress.
Explore creative ways to prevent stress and burnout during the peak season
“It’s going to be draining, it’s going to carry a level of weight. But at the end of the day, if we can find a way to incentivise the work that’s being done, it’s an extra layer of motivation,” Clement says. With LTVplus, in his personal experience, they allow opportunities for agents to de-stress, some examples he cited included:
- Playing some games for 30 minutes
- Having coffee breaks and mingling with colleagues
- Overall, just having some relaxation time in between
How can quality customer support maximize peak season revenue?
A high-performing support team doesn’t just solve problems. It identifies needs, restores confidence, and guides customers toward better purchase decisions.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to purchase from a brand just because I REALLY loved their customer support and how they handle things,” Vanessa exclaims.
Here are some quick examples of how quality customer support contributes to peak season revenue:
Personalized customer support sells
A well-trained agent is more than just a problem solver—they’re a sales consultant in disguise. With right preparation, support agents can move naturally between revolving issues and identifying complimentary needs. Instead of escalating every sales-related inquiry, trained agents can provide personalized recommendations with the same conversation, resulting in defused frustrations, speedier responses, and potential complaints U-turning into completed checkouts
Empathy boosts conversions
Empathy sells. An agent who genuinely seeks to understand a customer’s concern builds the kind of trust that marketing can’t replicate. When a customer feels heard, their guard drops, and their willingness to complete a purchase rises.
Overall, agents can convert hesitation into action by helping customers feel supported rather than sold to. During BFCM, this mindset can make the difference between abandoned carts and completed orders.
Anticipation increases average order value
Well-trained agents can also anticipate complimentary needs. As Clement shared in his example:
If you’re buying a camera, it would also need a lens, a memory card, or even a tripod. An agent who knows the catalog really well will be able to see what else the customer needs, address it through thoughtful conversion, and now the customer is on checkout with four total items instead of the original one (the camera).
This kind of value-driven upselling isn’t pushy—it’s helpful. When agents connect recommendations to genuine customer needs, they enhance the shopping experience while increasing average order value organically.
Skilled agents prevent purchase drop-offs
A skilled agent can also save a purchase before it’s lost. Often, customers reach out intending to cancel, return, or opt out—not because they’ve rejected the brand, but because something went wrong.
As Clement explained in an example: If a customer wants to return dog food because their pet is allergic to the particular flavor, a knowledgeable agent can turn that into an opportunity. Instead of processing the return immediately, the agent can suggest another flavor based on common allergies—keeping the customer engaged and the sale intact.
This blend of empathy and expertise prevents unnecessary churn and turns a negative experience into a demonstration of care.
Negotiation, when done right, works
Sometimes, keeping a sale requires flexibility. Empowering agents to offer better deals (within clear parameters) can stop customers from seeking alternatives elsewhere. Whether it’s applying a small discount, offering expedited shipping, or bundling an accessory, these gestures show responsiveness and build goodwill.
When agents have the authority and judgment to negotiate effectively, they reinforce the brand’s agility and dedication to customer satisfaction.
Key takeaway: Every customer support touchpoint is a revenue opportunity in disguise. Brands that empower empathetic, knowledgeable agents not only preserve sales—they amplify them through trust, personalization, and authentic human connection.
Make your next BFCM your smoothest and most profitable yet
The insights shared in this episode highlight not only the challenges of BFCM but also the opportunities to strengthen operations and create memorable customer experiences. To dive deeper into the full conversation and hear more expert tips straight from the team, check out the full episode here.
Our team can help you plan, scale, and optimize your customer support strategy for peak performance—book a free consultation with us.
