Written by: Tony Johnson, Co-Managing Partner and Chief Experience Officer, 4xi Global Consulting. Tony Johnson is an award-winning speaker and author on the topics of Customer Experience (CX), Employee Engagement (EX) and Leadership. Tony speaks to thousands annually and has been featured on ABC News and Fox News. He is available to help with your experience strategy, motivational keynotes, leadership workshops, and employee service skills training.
The holiday season is the ultimate stress test for your Customer Experience (CX). It’s not just about moving more products or providing more services – it’s about proving whether your organization can deliver when the pressure is at its highest.
Customers are stretched thin during the holidays. Their patience is short, and their expectations only continue to increase. With the shrinking budget and increased stakes for the holiday season, the margin for error is razor-thin, but the opportunity is massive. Get it right, and you will build loyalty that lasts well past December.
“Overall holiday spending is expected to decline by 5%, with gift spending seeing an 11% drop.” – PwC
This is not the season “just good enough,” but rather an opportunity to double down on experience and hospitality. It goes beyond promotions and decorations into the way brands can anticipate needs, empower teams, and remove friction from the buying experience.
Here are five cx tips to help you deliver excellence, grow sales, and build customer loyalty this holiday season:
1. Map the Holiday Journey, Not the Regular One
The customer journey (the path your customers take to do business with you) in December looks nothing like it does in July. Stress levels are higher, tolerance for friction is lower, and the stakes of every interaction are amplified.
- Parking lots and crowded lobbies can make or break the first impression.
- Shipping and inventory availability become central to the customer experience.
- Line management and speed of service shift from operational detail to a experience defining moment.
- Customers arrive rushed, tired, and easily frustrated.
- Even minor tech hiccups, like slow apps or kiosks, create major blowback.
How to apply in your business: Amazon rewrites its entire playbook around peak season. They anticipate surge patterns, simplify returns, and expand staffing in advance. You don’t need Amazon’s scale, but you do need their mindset. Audit your journey specifically for the holidays and adjust it based on reality, not routine. A.I and predictive analytics can help here to ensure you have the product and staffing to deliver during your busiest time.
2. Empower (and Train) the Frontline Team
Your frontline team is either your biggest service advantage or your biggest liability – but they are certainly the face of your organization every day. The holidays show whether your team is prepared and empowered or left to improvise.
- Conduct hospitality skills training and refreshers before the busy season begins
- Run role-plays on common holiday stress scenarios during training and onboarding.
- Teach service recovery skills, not just policies, to correct issues right away.
- Give employees authority to make on-the-spot decisions and fix problems.
- Arm them with quick-win tools like small discounts or simple gestures they can implement without manager approval each time.
- Recognize and reward your team when they get it right – what you reward will get repeated.
How to apply in your business: Disney doesn’t wait for problems to escalate. Their frontline teams are trained to act immediately – whether it’s replacing a dropped ice cream or listening to a frustrated guest. Follow their lead: run short huddles before shifts and give employees permission to solve problems instantly.
3. Over-Communicate with Clarity
Uncertainty is the enemy of great holiday experiences. Customers will forgive delays and shortages, but they won’t forgive silence or spin.
- Be upfront about realistic wait times and resist the urge to guess on the low side.
- Push updates proactively through texts, emails, and signage.
- Train staff to explain delays in simple, honest terms.
- Keep language understandable – there is no place for jargon or excuses.
- Apologize once, thank them for bringing it to your attention, then focus on how you’ll fix it.
How to apply in your business: Delta has mastered the art of real-time updates. Flight delays sting less when customers know exactly what’s happening and what to expect next. Build the same practice into your operation. While some carriers use the “creep” of edging delays out 10 minutes at a time, Delta tends to rip the bandage off at once. Painful, but honest. This applies to businesses when it comes to shipping delays, wait times, and inventory levels.
“41% of adults report higher stress levels during the holidays compared to other times of the year.” – American Psychological Association
4. Find That Extra 10%
The holidays are noisy, crowded, and full of average experiences. Customers are already overstressed and over stimulated, fueled by unrealistic expectations and a desire to create the “perfect” holiday. To stand out, you don’t need to do 100% more, you just need to give 10% extra that people notice.
- Surprise and delight with small, thoughtful gestures.
- Recognize loyalty with something personal, not just a coupon code. AI can help here with targeted offers and personalized experiences.
- Use sensory elements if you have a physical space, such as music, scent, and ambiance to create a full wrap around experience.
- Give staff freedom to go off-script or provide moments of magic when called for.
- Make customers feel like guests, not customers or consumers.
How to apply in your business: Chick-fil-A is famous for small moments that make a big difference, such as how they refill your beverage, provide dog biscuits in the drive through, or say “my pleasure.” You can find small gestures that carries weight for your customers: a free cookie, a holiday thank-you card, or even a warm smile or an extra moment of listening during the bustle of a busy day. That little extra turns a forgettable transaction into a story customers retell.
5. Measure What Actually Matters
The holidays are not the time for vanity metrics – you want to improve, not impress. What matters is whether customers walk away with their loyalty and trust in your brand increased (or not).
- Track recovery speed, not just transaction speed.
- Measure first-contact resolution.
- Watch return rates and repeat visits in Q1 and Q2.
- Monitor real-time sentiment on social media.
- Use feedback loops to correct issues mid-season, not after it ends.
- Leverage the power of AI to help you watch social media commentary and analyze verbatim comments within your feedback loops.
How to apply in your business: Research from Gartner shows that 96% of unhappy customers won’t complain directly – they just won’t come back. That makes it critical to measure signals like loyalty and repurchase, not just survey scores. Examine repeat sales and sales driven by recommendations to measure success, along with traditional metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS).
This is the time to finish strong.
The holiday season is your biggest stage and your final impression of the year. Customers are juggling chaos, but they’re also paying closer attention. How you show up now tells them everything about whether you are worth their business in the new year.
It isn’t enough to deliver great Customer Experiences (CX) when things are easy – it’s about showing that your brand can deliver under pressure when the stakes are high. That means mapping the journey, training + empowering your team, and giving just a bit more when it matters most.
The best part is that this last touch of the year has exponential opportunity to engender loyalty with customers as you work to finish your year strong from a financial perspective. With increasing customer expectations, shrinking spend, and increased competition for every dollar, you can’t just compete on price or product. You have to ensure that the experience you wrap around your services differentiates you in this crowded, noisy, and evolving marketplace.
This will set you up for a strong close to this year and a customer base excited to continue their relationship with your brand into the future.