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It’s Friday evening, 7 PM. You’ve had a tough week and you’re ready to finally relax. But your online store is experiencing its biggest shopping rush. Mrs. Johnson is looking for a gift for her husband, Mr. Smith wants to know if his order will arrive before Christmas, and Miss Taylor needs help choosing the right product.
Last Year’s Holiday Season in Numbers
US e-commerce during the 2024 holiday season (November-December) reached $241.4 billion, representing an impressive 8.7% year-over-year growth – nearly double the 4.9% growth seen in 2023. But here’s where it gets interesting: Q4 2024 e-commerce grew 6 times faster than total retail sales, demonstrating just how dominant online shopping has become during the holidays.
And the final quarter? That’s where the magic happens. According to US Census Bureau data, Q4 2024 saw e-commerce sales hit $352.9 billion with a 9.3% year-over-year increase, while overall retail only grew 4.5%. E-commerce penetration reached a record high of 24.6% of total retail sales – the highest ever recorded.
Black Friday alone drove $10.8 billion in online sales in the US, marking a 10.2% increase from 2023. The entire Cyber Week (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) generated $41.1 billion in online sales, with 197 million Americans making purchases during this period.
This was confirmed by our own study, in which we analyzed data from more than 175,000 accounts and nearly 5 billion website visits in 2024. Two conclusions clearly emerged:
- Customers don’t stop asking questions on weekends. On Mondays, e-stores answer 80% of queries – but on Sundays, only 53.9%. This means dozens of unanswered requests are waiting for you every Monday. Insufficient weekend coverage is the main weakness of most websites.
- In December, e-stores handle as many queries as they do all year. While for the rest of the year, e-stores using Smartsupp handled 1.8 to 2.8 million queries per month, in December this number skyrocketed to 18.4 million (!).
Response Speed is Critical
According to AAA AUTO’s experience using Smartsupp products, a customer who doesn’t receive a response to their initial message within 30 seconds will usually abandon the chat. Thirty seconds. That’s how long you have before losing a customer.
Quick response is therefore a priority for AAA AUTO operators, and the company consistently maintains an average first response time of 14 seconds. The result? Thanks to the combination of live chat and chatbot, they sell an additional 900 cars monthly and capture 7,200 new email contacts.
This is confirmed by a 2021 Forrester study, according to which 47% of e-commerce customers say they typically leave a website if they don’t get a quick response.
What Can You Do Better? Learn from Previous Seasons
The best preparation starts with looking in the mirror. Customer behavior doesn’t change that quickly from year to year – if you were primarily dealing with questions about delivery times and product availability last December, it will very likely be similar this year.
Review last year’s data and ask yourself:
- Which questions came up most frequently?
- On which days and at what times did most messages arrive?
- Where did customers “hit a wall” and leave your site?
- What percentage of queries could be resolved with automated responses?
Our TIP: Create Response Templates
Most queries are repetitive. Package tracking, payment methods, return policies, product availability – customers won’t stop asking these types of questions this year either. Prepare templates in advance for these situations that your operators can use with minimal customization. It doesn’t take much time, but it saves much more.
It’s not just about speed, but also consistency. When each operator has a different response style, customers might receive conflicting information. Templates ensure everyone communicates with the same level of professionalism and provides the same information.
Self-Service Rules Customer Care: Automate What You Can
Imagine having to hire enough people to cover all 168 hours of the week – including nights, weekends, and holidays. For most e-commerce businesses, this is economically unsustainable. And that’s exactly where automation comes in.
According to a Smartsupp study analyzing data from more than 175,000 e-shops worldwide, e-shops using chatbots answer 89.2% of queries, while e-shops without chatbots only answer 71.2%. That’s a difference of nearly 20 percentage points – 20% of potential customers who would otherwise leave empty-handed.
Websites with chatbots communicate with their customers much more frequently than those without (averaging 444.3 conversations monthly vs. 74.71 conversations monthly). That’s 6x more conversations = 6× more opportunities to sell.
So which Smartsupp tools can help you automate your customer support?
Mira AI Shopping Assistant
Mira AI is an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that can independently answer up to 80% of queries without operator assistance. It can also:
- Recommend suitable products based on customer needs
- Support upselling and cross-selling
- Operate 24/7 without breaks
For example, Leaderfox managed to maximize customer support automation – currently 96% of queries are handled by AI. They completely disabled live chat and only kept phone support for the most complex cases. The result? Their team can focus on demanding technical questions while AI handles routine inquiries.
Automatic Messages
If you want to get the most out of holiday sales, we also recommend our Automatic Messages feature.
It works simply. You select a condition under which you want the customer to receive a welcome message. For example, if they’re browsing a hair care page, you can alert them to a current promotion on 2+1 free shampoos and conditioners.
Automatic segmentation
Our chatbot can automatically tag and sort your conversations in the background. This means your contacts will be automatically tagged and ready for further work.
AI Reply Assistant
Give your writing a polished style and form. With our AI Reply Assistant, you can easily improve your texts, master grammar, and achieve a professional tone.
Launch Multichannel and Be Where Your Customers Are
As every e-commerce owner knows, customers ask questions wherever it’s convenient for them. Email, Messenger, WhatsApp, live chat… they expect quick responses everywhere, regardless of the time of day.
Thanks to Multichannel support, you can use Smartsupp to merge all these channels into one – and respond to customers across all channels from a single place.
Not only will this save you unnecessary switching between applications, but more importantly, it will speed up your response time to visitor queries who want to buy gifts as quickly as possible.
What to Do After the Season to Make Next Year Even Better
Once the dust settles after the holiday rush, sit down with your colleagues and review the fresh data with some perspective.
1. Evaluate Key Metrics
- How many queries came in? On which days and at what times?
- What was the average response time?
- How many queries went unanswered?
- How did customers rate your support?
2. Thank Your Entire Team
Your team just survived a marathon. Show them you appreciate their work. If the season went well, ideally not just with words. Motivated team = happier customers.
3. Write Down Notes for Next Year
Record what worked and what didn’t. You’ll need this next year. This task practically begs to be “put off until later,” but that’s not a good strategy. In a month, you’ll forget half of it.
4. Retention Plan for January
January tends to be a dead month. Use the contacts gained during Christmas to retain customers. A newsletter with a special offer, personal thank you, exclusive discount for loyal customers… there are plenty of options.
Smartsupp: Your Partner for a Peaceful Holiday Season
You might be thinking: “That sounds nice, but do I still have time?”
Good news: You can have Smartsupp on your website in 2 minutes. Integration with popular platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce is a matter of a few clicks.