If you run an online store you already know how November and December feel in the inbox. Whether the period becomes manageable or chaotic is not decided in November but in September and October, and it is less about hiring more hands than about the answers to the most common questions being written, reviewed and published before the pressure comes. This article goes through what actually happens to volumes, which questions dominate, and how to prepare customer service without guessing.
What happens to ticket volume during Black Week and Christmas?
More orders mean more tickets, and the tickets come concentrated in a few weeks with clear peaks. According to the Swedish Trade Federation's forecast for Black Week 2025, 57 percent of Swedes planned to shop during the week, 64 percent of them intended to buy Christmas gifts, and sales were expected to reach 10.2 billion kronor, up from 9.7 billion the year before. HUI Research's Christmas retail report 2025 expected retail turnover in December to pass 100 billion kronor for the first time. PostNord's E-barometern for the third quarter of 2025 showed e-commerce growing by 10 percent in the quarter and Swedes planning to buy Christmas gifts online for 12 billion kronor.
Two patterns in those reports matter for customer service. The first is that Black Week has become the starting gun for the Christmas season, so the season effectively begins in the last week of November and lasts until the days after Christmas. The second is that purchases come in waves: campaign start, the weekend after Black Friday, the last order date for delivery before Christmas, and then the return and exchange wave after the holidays. PostNord notes that the sales increase at Christmas is inevitably followed by more returns, especially in clothing and footwear where fit is decisive (PostNord on returns handling). Customer service therefore gets several peaks, and the last one comes when many in the team want to be off.
How much your own volume rises only your history can tell. Last year's figures per day and channel are the best material you can get.
Which questions dominate customer service at Christmas?
The questions are almost always the same, and that is exactly why they can be prepared. In a typical online store the Christmas tickets are about:
- Delivery time and delays. "Will the parcel arrive before Christmas?" and "Where is my order?" are the two questions that grow most as volume rises, because every order is a potential question.
- Last order date. The customer wants to know exactly which date applies for each shipping method.
- Returns and exchanges. Wrong size, duplicate gift, change of mind. The wave comes after the holidays.
- Right of withdrawal over Christmas. Gifts are bought in November but opened at the end of December. According to the Swedish Consumer Agency, consumers have a 14-day right of withdrawal on distance purchases, counted from the day after the item was received. Many retailers voluntarily extend it over Christmas, and then it must be stated clearly. Since 19 June 2026 there must also be a withdrawal function on the site; what it means for customer service is in the article on the withdrawal button.
- Gift cards. How to redeem, how long it is valid, whether it can be used on sale items. The company sets the validity period, but if none is stated the card is valid for ten years, according to the Consumer Agency's page on gift cards. Gift cards bought at a distance are also covered by the right of withdrawal.
- Opening hours and response times. When do you reply between Christmas and New Year, and how fast?
Note that several of the questions have legal answers you cannot be careless with. The Consumer Agency's information requirements for distance contracts mean you must give correct information about the right of withdrawal before the purchase, and that the customer can otherwise get up to an extra year to withdraw. A help centre that answers correctly on the right of withdrawal is therefore not just customer service; it is risk management.
How do you prepare the answers in September and October?
Write the answers now, review them with whoever owns the question, and publish them where the customer looks. The point of starting in September is that everyone involved has time: logistics can confirm the last order date, finance can confirm gift card terms, and whoever is legally responsible can read the text on the right of withdrawal once in peace. A reviewed knowledge base means the same answer is then used in the help centre, in the chat and as drafts in the inbox, instead of ten employees phrasing ten variants in December.
This is how the work can be laid out:
| When | What | Who confirms |
|---|---|---|
| September | Go through last year's tickets from November to January and list the 20 most common questions | Head of customer service |
| September | Write or update one answer per question: returns, exchanges, withdrawal over Christmas, gift cards, opening hours | The owner of each area |
| October | Add dates: last order date per shipping method, delivery times during campaigns, response times over the holidays | Logistics |
| October | Publish in the help centre, connect chat and suggested replies, test as a customer | Customer service |
| November | Update continuously when reality deviates: delays, sold-out items, changed dates | Customer service, daily |
The hardest part is not writing but knowing what is missing. Search last year's tickets for questions you answered freely, without an article to lean on; those are the knowledge gaps that cost most in December. And put the answers where they are used: "Where is my order?" should be answered with a tracking link directly in the help centre or chat, ideally with data from the e-commerce platform, so the customer does not need to write at all.
How do you staff from hourly volumes?
Staff to the curve, not to the average. A team that is right on average over the day can still have an hour's queue at ten and sit idle at four. Pull last year's volume per hour and weekday for the period from Black Week to mid-January, channel by channel. Chat and phone need someone there right then; email and forms can be moved a few hours.
Four things to calculate:
- The peak days. Black Friday, the Monday after, the day after the last order date and the first working day after New Year usually stand out. Plan them separately.
- The share self-service takes. If the help centre and chat answer order status, delivery time and return questions without a person, the volume that needs staffing falls. Measure last year's share and set a target for this year.
- Handling time per ticket type. An order status ticket takes a minute with the right tools; a complaint takes twenty. Staffing in number of tickets says nothing unless the type is included.
- Channel choice. Steer simple questions to self-service and chat and complicated ones to email with a clear response time; our article on when self-service, live chat and email suit goes through the trade-off.
And set a response-time promise you can keep. An honest "we reply within two working days between Christmas and New Year" published in the help centre produces fewer reminder emails than an unspoken same-day promise that breaks.
What do you measure after Christmas?
Measure what says something about next year: which questions still ended up with a person, and why. Volume in itself is just a consequence of sales. What you can influence is how large a share of the questions got an answer without manual handling, and how many had to wait.
- Volume per day, hour and channel, compared with last year and with the forecast.
- Share of tickets resolved in self-service or chat without handover, per question type.
- The ten most common questions that still reached the inbox. Was the answer wrong, hard to find, or missing?
- Response time and resolution time per channel, against the promise you published.
- Return tickets: how many needed to contact you to return, instead of managing it themselves?
The metrics that matter in customer service year round apply here too; the difference is that Christmas gives a large, concentrated sample in a few weeks. Go through it in January while everyone remembers, and put the result straight into next year's September list.
What to do
You can start this this week.
- Export last year's tickets from 15 November to 15 January and group them roughly by question type. A spreadsheet is enough.
- Take the 20 most common questions and check whether a published, correct answer exists today. Mark what is missing or out of date.
- Book half an hour each with logistics and finance to settle dates, delivery times and gift card terms.
- Write the answers on the right of withdrawal, returns and exchanges over Christmas, and have whoever is legally responsible read them before they are published.
- Pull the hourly volume for the peak days and build a staffing schedule from it, not from a daily average.
- Decide which five measures you follow during the period and who reads them every morning.
Common questions
When should we start preparing customer service for Christmas?
In September. Then there is time to go through last year's tickets, write and review answers and get dates confirmed by logistics before campaign planning takes all the attention in October. Black Week is in the last week of November and is in practice the start of the Christmas season, so everything that should be in the help centre and chat ought to be published and tested by early November at the latest.
Do we have to extend the right of withdrawal over Christmas?
No. The law gives a 14-day right of withdrawal on distance purchases, counted from the day after the customer received the item, and that is the minimum. Many retailers voluntarily extend it over Christmas so gifts bought in November can be returned in January. If you do, state exactly which date applies and for which purchases, and make sure the information is the same in the help centre, checkout and order confirmation.
Which questions can self-service and chat take entirely without a person?
Order status, delivery time, last order date, how a return works, gift card terms and opening hours. What they have in common is that the answer is the same for every customer or can be fetched directly from the order system. Questions that need judgement, for example a damaged item, a complaint or a customer who has already waited a long time, should go quickly to a person with the ticket history attached.
How do we know how many people we need?
Count backwards from last year's volume per hour and channel, minus the share you expect self-service to take this year, times the handling time per ticket type. If you lack hourly data, start logging it now; even a few weeks in October give a curve to scale up. Plan the peak days separately and set a published response-time promise you can keep even at the busiest time.
Sources
- Rekordmånga planerar att handla under Black Week — Swedish Trade Federation, 2025
- Julhandelsrapporten 2025: Historiskt stark julhandel står för dörren — HUI Research, 2025
- E-barometern Q3 2025 — PostNord with HUI Research, 2025
- Enkel returhantering ger nöjdare konsumenter — PostNord, read 2026
- Ångerrätt: när kan du ångra köpet? — Swedish Consumer Agency, read 2026
- Informationskrav vid distansavtal: regler för företag — Swedish Consumer Agency, read 2026
- Presentkort och tillgodokvitto — Swedish Consumer Agency, read 2026
Rickard Collander