Retailers spend months preparing for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday shopping rush. They forecast demand, expand support teams, and work to keep order volumes moving, but once the holiday sales peak passes, another demanding season begins.
January brings a wave of returns, exchanges, refund-status questions, and gift-related inquiries that can strain customer experience (CX) teams as seasonal staffing winds down. For ecommerce brands, the post-holiday period is a critical opportunity to protect customer loyalty, recover revenue, and deliver a better post-sale experience.
Effective ecommerce returns management requires the same level of planning as holiday fulfillment. Brands that prepare for January’s volume can resolve issues faster, manage costs, and turn potentially frustrating interactions into reasons for customers to shop again.
Why the Post-Holiday Returns Surge is Important
The scale of ecommerce returns makes January a predictable operational challenge. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Happy Returns’ 2025 Retail Returns Landscape report, retailers estimated that 19.3% of online sales would be returned in 2025, compared with 15.8% of total retail sales. Holiday purchases come back at an even higher rate: retailers expected 17% of holiday sales to be returned, and 43% planned to hire seasonal staff specifically to handle returns.
The holiday season adds another layer of complexity. Some shoppers return duplicate gifts, exchange items for different sizes or colors, or request refunds for products that didn’t meet expectations. Others contact support to ask whether a return has arrived, when a refund will be issued, or how to redeem a gift card.
For omnichannel retailers, customers might start a return online and finish it in a physical store, or expect support agents to reconcile information across multiple systems.
This creates a concentrated post-holiday returns period that affects customer service, warehouse operations, inventory management, and finance. When these teams don’t work together, even straightforward requests take longer to resolve.
Why January Can Be Harder Than the Holiday Sales Peak
During the holiday shopping rush, many customer contacts are transactional: shoppers want to know when an order will arrive, whether an item is in stock, or how to complete their purchase.
January conversations can carry more emotional weight. A customer may have waited weeks for a gift, received the wrong product, or returned an item without seeing a refund. They may get frustrated by a policy they didn’t fully understand or worry they can’t exchange a time-sensitive purchase.
These interactions require more than quick responses. Agents need to explain policies clearly, investigate exceptions, and provide realistic timelines without promising outcomes they can’t control.
These conversations also run longer. Plan for higher handle times on refund disputes and policy exceptions than on routine WISMO contacts, particularly on voice and chat, where frustrated customers are most likely to escalate.
Staffing can make the situation more difficult. Seasonal agents may leave after December, taking valuable product and processing knowledge with them. Meanwhile, experienced employees manage complex cases, train remaining staff, or handle escalations.
Without a deliberate ecommerce customer support staffing plan, longer queues and repeat contacts can quickly follow.
Retailers should also recognize the connection between delivery questions and returns. WISMO (or “Where Is My Order?”) inquiries may continue well into early January as customers track late holiday shipments. These contacts can overlap with refund inquiries when customers aren’t sure whether an order will arrive or whether they should initiate a return.
Turn Returns and Exchanges into Retention Opportunities
A return doesn’t automatically mean that you have lost a customer. How a retailer handles the interaction can influence whether the shopper comes back.
Consider a customer who receives a jacket that’s the wrong size. If the returns process makes an exchange easy, the customer could still end up with a product they love. If the process involves repeated contacts, unclear instructions, and slow refunds, the customer might shop elsewhere next time.
Strong returns and exchanges support starts with clear policies and empowered agents. Support teams should be able to explain eligibility requirements, return windows, shipping fees, refund timelines, and exchange options without searching across disconnected resources.
Where policy and inventory allow, agents can offer exchanges, alternative products, or store credit when these options meet the customer’s needs. Agents should never make an exchange feel like an obstacle to a refund the customer is eligible for.
Speed and transparency matter as well. Customers should receive confirmation when they initiate a return, when the package is received, and when a refund is processed. Proactive updates reduce uncertainty and help prevent avoidable WISMO and refund inquiries.
The goal is to make the next step obvious, minimize customer effort, and resolve the issue as completely as possible in the first interaction.
An October-to-January Checklist for Returns Readiness
January support performance is largely shaped by decisions made before the holiday rush. Retailers can use the following checklist to prepare their teams and processes.
- Forecast returns using historical data
Review last year’s return volumes, refund contacts, exchange requests, and daily or weekly demand patterns. Compare those trends with expected sales growth, promotional activity, product launches, and fulfillment changes. Forecasting by contact reason is more useful than relying on total ticket volume alone.
- Clarify policies and exception handling
Before peak season starts, document holiday return extensions, final-sale exclusions, damaged item procedures, exchange rules, and refund timelines. Make sure customer service, warehouse, finance, and store teams follow the same guidance. Clear escalation paths help agents resolve unusual cases without unnecessary delays.
- Strengthen self-service options
Give customers accessible return instructions, searchable FAQs, tracking tools, and clear status updates. Automated notifications can answer common questions before customers need to talk with an agent. Self-service should complement human support, with an easy path to assistance when a case requires judgment or investigation.
- Keep trained agents through mid-January
Don’t assume support demand will immediately slow down after December 25. Use historical patterns to determine how long you need additional coverage, and plan staggered seasonal offboarding. Keeping experienced agents through January can protect service quality as the team handles complex returns and refund exceptions.
- Align support with fulfillment and finance
Agents need to see return receipts, inspection, refund approval, and payment-processing milestones. Establish clear ownership for delays and make sure that frontline teams know when to escalate cases. Better coordination reduces repeat contacts and prevents customers from being passed between departments.
For brands that need additional capacity, an outsourced or nearshore support partner can absorb January volume without permanently expanding the internal team. Whether that partner reduces friction or adds to it depends on preparation: agents trained on return policies and exception handling before December, access to order and refund systems from day one, and the same quality standards your in-house team follows.
The Metrics That Reveal Returns Readiness
Total ticket volume tells leaders how busy a team is, but it doesn’t explain whether the returns experience is working.
These three measures deserve particular attention during January:
- Refund-status contact rate: Track how often customers contact support to ask about refund progress. A rising rate may indicate unclear communications, processing delays, or gaps in status visibility.
- Exchange-to-refund ratio: Monitor how frequently eligible return requests result in exchanges rather than refunds. Interpret this metric alongside customer satisfaction and policy eligibility; a higher exchange rate isn’t necessarily better if customers feel pressured.
- Repeat contacts per return: Measure how many times customers contact the business about the same return. Frequent follow-ups can signal unresolved issues, unclear timelines, or poor coordination between systems.
These measures are most useful when viewed alongside the retail customer service KPIs leaders already track: first-contact resolution, customer satisfaction (CSAT), escalation rates, and cost per contact. Together, they help leaders see whether staffing and process improvements reduce customer effort without sacrificing service quality.
Plan for the Peak After the Peak
The holiday sales rush may end in December, but the customer experience doesn’t stop when the last gift is delivered. In January, retailers prove their service extends beyond the transaction.
Brands that forecast returns, communicate policies clearly, retain trained agents, and track the right metrics can manage workloads better while preserving customer trust. Effective ecommerce returns management makes the entire post-purchase journey easier for customers and more efficient for the business.
At The Office Gurus, we’ve spent 18 years helping retailers staff for the moments that test their support teams, including the weeks after the holidays, when returns, refunds, and exchanges take center stage. Our experience across nearshore, onshore, and offshore operations shows that locking in peak-season support early separates a smooth January from a backlog.
Plan the next peak before this one ends.
