When contact centers collapse during Black Friday, it’s rarely because of one bad agent or one overloaded queue. It’s because the org failed to prepare cross-functionally.
We’ve prepared a 90-day action plan that lets you go from simply surviving to absolutely crushing your holiday season goals. You are also going to find the right tech tools that power each action.
Let’s Start.
A 90-Day Action Plan
Even with all that preparation, the thing still cracks under pressure. That’s where the overlooked aspects reveal themselves.
Our 90-day action plan consists of Planning, Training, and Execution that plugs the gaps that occur during preparation for Black Friday.
Phase 1: Planning (Days 1–30)
The first thirty days are going to be a planning process. Most leaders already start this phase with the basics, like:
1- Pulling YOY Data
Everyone leans on seasonal workforce management tools at this point. Managers pull last year’s numbers, spot the spikes, and staff accordingly. For instance, if you know WISMO (“Where Is My Order?”) calls went up 40% last year, you don’t wait around, and you get more people on deck.
2- Expanding the workforce
Leaders bring in temp staff, line up overflow partners, and use workforce management to spread the load. Nobody relies only on the core team for Black Friday.
3- Making sure their cloud contact center software can handle the surge
Those are solid, but not enough. On top of that, there are three planning moves leaders often miss that can make or break Black Friday, which are:
- Cross-Department Forecasting: Too many forecasts happen in silos. Marketing runs promos without looping in CX, and suddenly, the phones are melting down. Get marketing, logistics, and CX in the same room early.
- Go Beyond Just Volume: Most forecasts stop at how many calls are coming in. What gets missed? The type of calls. If a new product is likely to trigger sizing questions, prep FAQs and scripts ahead of time.
- Smart SLAs, Not Generic Ones: Don’t treat every customer the same. Prioritize VIP customers or high-value orders. For example, for VIP chats, the wait time is under 30 seconds. Everyone else? Still quick, but not quite red-carpet speed.
Phase 2: Training (Days 31–60)
Most leaders already cover the basics in this phase, such as refresher training, empathy coaching, and role-playing. It’s standard playbook stuff. But those alone won’t cut it once Black Friday chaos hits.
That’s why we’re highlighting the following three training areas that usually get overlooked during the training process:
- AI Coaching in Real Time: Basic training is fine, but you definitely need AI for CX. Because it can spot patterns you’d never catch. For instance, AI can recognize agents who keep messing up refund workflows, so the system can push them targeted refreshers instantly.
- Text-Based Empathy: Voice gets all the training love, but Black Friday is heavy on chat and social. Agents need to know how to sound human over text. To make things easier for them, you can give agents templates that are fast but still empathetic.
- Crisis Simulations: Mock calls are cute, but what happens if your website crashes? Few teams practice those scenarios. Run practice simulations that include IT, marketing, and CX all at once, like a fire drill, but for customer chaos.
These are the differences between a team that barely survives and one that actually thrives.
Phase 3: Execution (Days 61–90)
And now we are in the most exciting part. All you have done is going to be tested at this stage.
As a leader, you probably go into execution by:
- Extending hours during peak week,
- Command centers or war rooms to monitor dashboards, and
- Pre-scheduled shifts
These are going to cover known busy periods. However, there are a few things you need to consider on the execution stage that most leaders miss.
1- Real-Time Flex Scheduling
Planning weeks ahead is good, but you also need the ability to spin up surge teams in hours. Use workforce management efficiently to take that flexibility.
2- Watch Sentiment, Not Just Queues
Dashboards usually show wait times and handle time, but what about how customers feel? Track CSAT and sentiment live. For example, if bots escalate the conversation, you know it’s time to send in more humans.
3- Don’t Forget the Aftermath
Black Friday isn’t one day; it’s a whole wave. There will be returns, refunds, shipping delays… These are all that hit the week after. Get ahead of it by extending hours, setting up dedicated returns flows, and shifting simple stuff to customer service automation.
Tech Tools That Power Each Phase
To truly execute this 90-day plan, leaders must pair strategy with the right technology. Quick breakdown of tools that fit each stage as follows:
Planning (Days 1–30)
Use advanced Workforce Management (WFM) platforms for forecasting and cloud contact center software for scalability and uptime testing. Try predictive analytics tools to map out call types.
Training (Days 31–60)
Use AI-driven coaching platforms to deliver micro-learning in real time and knowledge bases, chatbot training environments to prepare agents for empathy-driven conversations across channels.
Benefits from sentiment analysis tools for understanding what is missing in training
Execution (Days 61–90)
For real-time CSAT tracking, live dashboards with workforce flexibility features, and automation platforms help leaders adapt instantly.
Add monitoring software to track system health and utilize predictive analytics to identify spikes before they cause queue issues.
🎯From Workforce Management to Agent Coaching, Sentiment Analysis, and Live Dashboard to CX Insight Call Center Studio is your one-stop platform for planning, training, and execution.
Tell us what you need. Let’s prepare Black Friday together.
