Article overview: E-commerce businesses put a lot of effort into planning their holiday sales. But what happens when those promotions bring in more orders than their customer service teams can handle? Outsourcing e-commerce customer service gives businesses a way to prepare for the extra demand without overwhelming their existing agents. We’ll look at how holiday sales plans affect customer service needs and how businesses can prepare their teams for the holiday rush.
The Customer Service Side of Holiday Sales
An e-commerce brand can have its entire holiday campaign planned down to the last detail and still underestimate the demands on its customer service team. According to Adobe’s 2025 Holiday Shopping Report, U.S. consumers spent a record $257.8 billion online during the 2025 holiday season, up 6.8% from the previous year. That’s a tremendous amount of business, but sales forecasts don’t necessarily account for the customer inquiries those orders will generate. And if those inquiries start coming in faster than agents can respond, even a carefully planned promotion can put customer service under pressure.
The trouble is that holiday promotions don’t create a predictable stream of customer inquiries. Some shoppers need help deciding what to buy, while others might reach out days after a promotion has ended. Sales forecasts can tell you how many orders to expect, but they can’t tell you exactly when customers will need help or how long they’ll keep contacting your team after a promotion ends.
There’s nothing wrong with setting ambitious holiday sales targets, but the customer service team needs enough capacity to support them. A promotion can bring in the orders you hoped for while leaving customers waiting longer than expected for assistance, which isn’t exactly the ecommerce customer experience you planned to deliver. And if outsourcing e-commerce customer service is part of your holiday plans, remember that bringing in additional agents takes time, especially when they need to learn your products and how your team handles customer inquiries.
The Customer Service Math Behind Holiday Promotions
Holiday promotions can bring in thousands of orders, which also means more customers reaching out for help. Some will have questions about discounts or need help completing their purchases, while others will want updates on orders they’ve already placed. With all those inquiries coming in during a short sale, your customer service team could have some very busy days ahead.
You can get a good idea of how much extra work to expect by looking at your previous promotions. Let’s say your last sale brought in 5,000 orders and 500 customer inquiries. That’s a 10% contact rate, or one inquiry for every 10 orders. With agents spending an average of six minutes on each inquiry, that adds up to 50 hours of customer service work. If your next promotion is expected to bring in 8,000 orders, that same contact rate and handling time would put you at around 800 inquiries and 80 agent hours. While it’s only an estimate, it gives you a useful number to compare with your team’s available capacity.
But those 80 hours are only part of the calculation. You’ll need more agents available if those inquiries come in over three days instead of two weeks. And if most customers reach out during the sale’s opening hours or right before it ends, you’ll need extra coverage during those busy periods too. Your team still has regular customer inquiries to manage, so those need to be included in your staffing calculations. Once you know what your current team can handle, you’ll have a better idea of how many additional agents you’ll need if you’re outsourcing e-commerce customer service.
The Right BPO for Your Holiday Rush
A well-known BPO company with an impressive client list can certainly catch your attention. But if you’re considering outsourcing e-commerce customer service, you’ll want to know whether a potential partner has experience supporting seasonal teams similar to the one you’re planning. An e-commerce business looking for 25 additional agents will have different requirements from one that needs 150. And while a BPO’s size and resources are worth considering, what matters most is whether it can properly support an account like yours.
Start by asking how the BPO has handled seasonal accounts of a similar size. If you’re looking for 150 agents, find out whether the provider has managed that kind of holiday expansion before. If you only need 25, ask how it supports smaller accounts alongside larger clients. You can also request examples of comparable seasonal engagements, including how many agents were involved and how the provider managed the busiest weeks.
Recommendations from other e-commerce business owners and CX leaders can help you narrow your choices, too. Rather than settling for a general endorsement, ask what their experience was like during the busiest weeks. Find out whether their account manager was accessible when they needed help and how the provider responded when something didn’t go according to plan. It’s also worth asking whether they’d work with that BPO again. Their answers can give you a better idea of what to expect from the partnership during your own holiday rush.
The Right Work for Your Holiday Customer Service Team
It’s easy to decide on paper which customer inquiries your outsourced agents will handle. But the reality is, some customer inquiries require more work than others. If you’re outsourcing e-commerce customer service, challenge your BPO partner with some of the more demanding inquiries from past holiday sales before deciding which requests its agents should handle.
You can start by pulling anonymized examples from the last holiday rush, including requests that took extra effort to resolve. Have your BPO partner work through those examples using the same systems and information its seasonal agents will have available. As they go through each request, pay attention to anything that slows them down or requires help from your internal team.
That should give you a better sense of what needs attention before the seasonal team starts handling customer inquiries, especially anything that could affect the ecommerce customer experience. Some agents might need access to additional information, while certain requests could still require approval from your internal employees. You might even find that your outsourced agents can handle more than you originally expected. With those details worked out, you’ll be in a better position to decide which responsibilities to assign to your seasonal team.
The Customer Service Cost of a Holiday Sale
Black Friday sales and Cyber Monday promotions can bring a flood of shoppers to your e-commerce store. But if customers can’t get answers to their questions, some might leave without even buying anything. Not every unanswered inquiry means a lost sale, but during a limited-time promotion, a slow response could be just the nudge a shopper needs to choose a competing brand.
Even after a customer completes a purchase, poor service can affect whether they’ll buy from your brand again. According to PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey, 29% of consumers stopped buying from or using a brand because of poor customer experience. The finding isn’t specific to holiday shopping, but it reinforces how much the ecommerce customer experience can matter to future purchases. After all, attracting new shoppers is great, but giving them a reason to return is even better.
With so much effort going into holiday sales campaigns, customer service deserves just as much attention. Outsourcing e-commerce customer service can help your business keep up with the extra demand, giving shoppers access to timely assistance without stretching your existing team too thin. That way, the effort you’ve put into attracting customers has a better chance of turning into purchases and lasting customer relationships.
A Customer Service Team Built for the Holiday Rush
The best outcome for your holiday sale isn’t simply getting through the busiest shopping days. It’s knowing your business can welcome more customers without making them compete for your team’s attention. And that starts with a customer service team that can keep up.
Peak Support can help you build that team. We know holiday sales don’t follow the same schedule or bring the same demands for every e-commerce business, so we’ll tailor our customer service support to your holiday rush plans. Whether you’re planning one major promotion or a full season of holiday offers, you’ll have customer service agents ready to help customers when they need it.
Let’s talk about making your next holiday sale a reason to celebrate.