Don't go dark this BFCM: the 2026 planning guide is here

For a lot of eCommerce brands, the holiday window carries up to half of annual revenue. So the support setup that runs fine in July only gets tested once it actually matters: usually late on the Friday after Thanksgiving, at 2am, on the one channel nobody's watching.

We put together a planning guide for teams gearing up for peak season. It skips most of the theory and focuses on the decisions you actually have to make in October: what to automate, what to keep human, how much coverage to buy, and what "ready" looks like a week out.

This year's edition also covers something that wasn't really a factor last BFCM.

Most brands now run some form of automated first response, so the 2026 question isn't adoption anymore. It's whether that AI setup holds up under peak volume with peak-season information, or quietly starts giving out September's shipping cutoffs in November.

What's inside:

1. Omnichannel CX: keeping one conversation intact no matter how many channels it crosses
2. Proactive customer engagement: getting ahead of the question before it turns into a ticket
3. AI agents that don't go dark (new for 2026): where automation earns its keep, where to keep a human in the loop, and how to catch an AI agent before it confidently answers thousands of tickets wrong
4. Post-purchase loyalty: treating returns season as a retention channel instead of a cost center
5. Getting your team ready: staffing, coverage, and a checklist for the final week

Agents take about six weeks to hire and train properly. AI takes a couple of weeks to train and a full season to supervise well. None of that is something you can buy on the Wednesday before Black Friday, so the earlier this gets on your calendar, the more of it you get to control.

• Download the guide

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