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4 Crucial Trends for the 2018 Holiday Retail Season

In this post-Christmas moment, retailers are assessing the just-concluded season and starting to plan for the next one. But one retail issue is perennial: customer requests for support tend to surge dramatically over the holidays. Retailers are always bombarded with consumer queries during the final months of the year, both in-store or online. As sales go up, so consumers become more conscious of a business’s overall customer experience.

Companies can find it challenging to manage both the influx of customers and the accompanying rise in support tickets—not only that, but ticket surge varies by channel. Fortunately, this is an increasingly omnichannel retail world. Customers have increasing service expectations for the channel of their preference, not to mention the benefits of a seamless customer experience. They can be assured that they’ll get the help they need when a company has its omnichannel bases covered.

Zendesk examined data from retailers all over the world. Findings around omnichannel in the retail industry include:

  • Speed of the first reply is directly linked to customer satisfaction
  • There is a clear trend of ticket volume increases across all channels in November and December
  • Ticket volume year over year has climbed dramatically in each channel – and astoundingly so for newer channels like Facebook and Twitter
  • When ticket volume surges, disjointed support systems fail, sacrificing first-reply times and CSAT scores

These findings relate directly to how omnichannel can benefit consumers. Bringing everything together through an omnichannel retail experience is how customers can be satisfied even as ticket volumes inflate.

Read the full report to learn more and how you can start preparing for a successful season right now.

4 Crucial Trends for the 2018 Holiday Retail Season