Peak season planning is a year-round undertaking that encompasses planning for and actively managing the peak season, recovering from and analyzing it, and strategizing for next year. 

With strategic preparation and robust support structures in place, navigating these peak periods can result in smooth operations and big wins for your bottom line.

When it comes to ensuring peak season readiness, one key factor is scalable customer service. High-demand periods — like back-to-school, holiday seasons, end-of-year sales, or special promotional events — can test the limits of even the most well-oiled customer service departments. To ensure your team is ready to handle the surge in customer interactions, there are several steps you need to take well ahead of time.

When Is Peak Season?

Seasonality varies across industries, but it’s particularly recognized for impacting retail and ecommerce customer service during the holidays. Whenever your industry’s peak season starts, it’s best to be prepared for the uptick in volume and the increased demands on your customer service team that go along with it. 

To determine your peak seasons, review historical sales and customer service data, and back your findings up with industry trends and economic forecasts. If you look at year-over-year graphs of your sales volume and customer service interactions, you’ll likely spot major spikes. 

You don’t want to realize in late October that you’re woefully understaffed for holiday season customer service — by then, it may be too late to make the adjustments you need to in order to tackle the increased business. This can lead to dissatisfied customers, an increase in returns, and lost customer loyalty. 

How to Prepare for Peak Season

Once you identify your peak season, work backwards at least three months (your time frame may vary depending on your operations) to start your business ramp up planning. You’ll likely need to make a number of adjustments across multiple parts of your operations to be truly prepared, including:

• Increasing production or inventory procurement to ensure you don’t run out of stock for key items
• Increasing in-store, support, and / or order processing staff to handle additional volume
• Increasing operating hours to spread out volume and avoid bottlenecks

SupportNinja’s Seven-Point Plan for Peak Season Customer Support Success

1. Review last year’s peak season. What were your biggest wins, and where is there room for improvement? The best time to do this is when it’s fresh in your mind, right after the peak subsides — good data and clear KPIs will make it easier for you to arrive at actionable changes to make.
   

2. Understand your customers’ preferred communication channels. If you know where your customers will turn for support first (phone, chat, email, etc.) then you can plan for the increased volume and allocate resources effectively. Omnichannel solutions are a great way to cover all your bases. Additionally, think about the nature of the spike in customer service demand — is it just an increase in volume, or is it also an increase in complexity? The answer should influence how you adjust your systems and staffing.
   

3. Identify your in-house and outsourced hiring needs. Having the right number of agents can make or break your customer experience during peak support season, so it pays to take the time to think through how many and what kind of additional resources you’re going to need based on previous years and future forecasts. Is your recruiting team equipped to hire enough in-house team members to meet your anticipated needs? If you’re planning to outsource any roles, do you have a partner in mind who can plug into your operations and ramp up quickly? 
   

4. Make the most of your tools. Technology can be a powerful partner for customer support teams, letting one agent comfortably handle the work of many. As you prepare for peak season, make sure your knowledge bases and other support resources are up to date and your SOPs are clear. Don’t forget to audit and QA your processes in advance to ensure they’ll measure up during peak season. 
   

5. Make self-service options easy and effective. Self-service tools can improve your customer experience — but don’t leave customers hanging in an AI loop if they really can only get a satisfying resolution from a human representative. Check the information on your website, FAQs, chatbots, and other customer-facing sources of knowledge to ensure accuracy. 
   

6. Plan time for effective training. There’s a learning curve for any job, and seasonal new hires are too often thrown into the deep end with abbreviated training during peak season. In addition, consider providing all team members with specialized training on scenarios like deescalation, dispute resolution, and handling stressed or overwhelmed customers. 
   

7. Build systems you can adjust in real time. Even the best laid plans can go awry, so make sure you build in checkpoints to review program performance If necessary, adjust your systems on the fly to ensure you’re meeting customer expectations and making the most of peak season opportunities. 

When to Hire for Peak Season

If you’re hiring in-house, consider how long your recruitment cycle typically takes — and adjust as necessary for seasonal fluctuations. You want staff onboarded with enough time to train before peak season hits, so back out anticipated training time as you consider when to start hiring for seasonal peaks. 

If you’re outsourcing to expand customer service for peak season, here’s a timeline to start from: 

Allow at least 90 days, including: 

• 30 days to identify and contract with a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) partner (or longer if you know your selection and contracting process typically runs long)
• 30 days to craft job descriptions, recruit and hire, and develop training materials
• 30 days for training and nesting

This timeline ensures that your new outsourced team is well-integrated and knowledgeable about your products or services before peak demand hits. Already have an outsourcer on speed dial? Existing relationships can speed up this process.

BUT — in a time crunch? We’ve got you! Learn how we spun up a winning team in just 3 days for a leading AI client.

Choosing an Outsourcing Partner for Peak Season Staffing

The right outsourcing partner can ease peak season stress and set you up for success. Providing high-quality customer experience remains one of the most important factors for customer satisfaction loyalty 

Look for a partner that offers a comprehensive suite of services — including AI-enabled solutions — that can assemble an optimal team tailored to your specific requirements, geared to seamlessly ramp up. A great partner will track your outsourced team’s performance to set you up with the best possible data for next year's decision making.

Connect with us to talk about your peak season staffing needs.