Gift cards are one of the most popular choices for gifts or corporate incentives. As demand surges, especially during the peak time seasons like Christmas, customer support teams often face overwhelming volumes in customer support requests. 

Ensuring quick, accurate and efficient service under these conditions is essential for maintaining customer trust, so why does peak times really overwhelm gift card support? 

1.High spikes in purchase volume 

During holidays, purchasing can multiplying several times. This naturally leads to more questions about activation, delivery time or delays, balance checks and redemption issues. 

2.Higher user errors 

Customers rushing to buy or send gifts may mistype email addresses, misunderstand redemption guidelines or miss activation steps, a common issue that requires human support. 

3.Dependence on third party systems 

Payment processors, email delivery platform, mobile app providers or PoS networks must all function seamlessly. Any error or outage on these external services add pressure team on both programme management and customer support teams. 

Gift card programme managers must ensure that their customers won’t be affected by any of the above and ensure that their customers receive the support they need, when they need it, without any issues. 

But what are the typical customer support challenges during the peak times? 

1.Delays in response times 

As usage grows, the customer queues grow too. Without adequate operational resources, wait times will increase which means frustration within customers who may already feel under pressure by holiday deadlines. 

 2.Complex issues 

Lost or no access to emails, invalid codes, multi-step redemption, specific usage queries or system errors that require careful handling and often involve human support. 

3. Maintaining service quality even under pressure 

Delivering reliable and consistent customer support becomes challenging for a small internal team when faced with unusually high volumes. Maintaining service quality during these peak periods requires clear processes, prioritisation, and tools that help the team respond promptly without compromising the customer experience.

To maintain a frictionless customer support operation, gift card programme managers must anticipate and prepare before the volumes spike. 

Here are our 3 recommendations: 

1.Implement automation, such as FAQ or self-service portals where users can resend virtual gift cards, activate their cards, update their personal information or verify gift card balances. 

2. Develop comprehensive guides, step-by-step troubleshooting videos, and clear product descriptions to help customers better understand the products they purchase and resolve issues independently. 

3.During peak times customers are always searching for quick answers through human based customer support. Prepare and adopt a proactive solution by partnering with a customer support organisation which provide you with all the operational resources to overcome the spike in seasonality support without compromising your quality and customer satisfaction.