4 Key Retail Challenges of the Holiday Season and How to Overcome Them

The retail industry during the holiday season and its operations look as simple as seeing that perfect holiday gift in a store window, stepping inside to buy it, or putting it back if it doesn’t feel right. Or browsing online, finding a festive deal, clicking “buy now,” and eagerly waiting for its arrival to wrap up for the holidays.

What seems straightforward requires complex coordination behind the scenes—managing supply chains, ensuring timely logistics, synchronizing in-store and eCommerce operations, and aligning sales and marketing efforts. For retail enterprises, these functions often operate in silos, creating inefficiencies, miscommunications, and delays that can impact customer satisfaction, employee experience, and operational costs during the holiday rush.

And it’s the holiday season that can make or break profit margins. To support this, Deloitte’s 2024 Holiday Retail Survey found that US consumers planned to increase their spending by 8% compared to the previous year, indicating a strong holiday shopping season. So, how can you ensure that your brick-and-mortar and online stores are synchronized and ready to provide the personalized, omnichannel experiences customers expect during rush days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday (BFCM), and Christmas sales?

The answer lies in leveraging the right technology to break down operational silos and enhance efficiency. And what’s better than ServiceNow for the retail industry? With ServiceNow for retail operations, you can streamline and automate processes across in-store and eCommerce channels or any devices or portals, transforming workflows and ensuring a holiday season that’s smoother and more memorable for both customers and employees.

In this article, we will discuss the most pressing challenges retailers face during the holiday season and how ServiceNow for retail possesses powerful features to help overcome them, driving efficiency and maximizing profitability when it matters most.

4 Challenges (and ServiceNow for Retail Solutions) that Impact your Holiday Season Success

1. Operational Overload and Supply Chain Disruptions Simplified with Proactive Automation

Business Challenge

During the holidays, increased traffic can lead to system slowdowns or crashes, and if in-store systems are unreliable, issues in any process, from purchasing to check out, lead to frustration, long lines, lost sales, and a damaged brand reputation. Supply chain disruptions can further exacerbate delays, slowing down communications and processes critical to fulfilling customer demand.

Solution

Operations play a crucial role during the holiday season. Outages, downtime, and ensuring that devices and portals run seamlessly are essential to keeping the customer experience positive and avoiding losses. During peak season, proactively request, manage, and resolve store issues and asset repairs quickly with automated workflows and work orders.

ServiceNow Features

• Business Location 360: Provides a dedicated dashboard that showcase context specific to each site for open cases, installed devices and point of contacts.
• Business Location Service Portal: A one-stop application to view, manage, and request support for different business locations.
• Service Model Foundation: Provides the flexibility and security to support retailers with relationships of employees and customers that exist between multiple locations in a single framework.
• Omnichannel Support: Enables seamless communication and collaboration between store employees, field technicians, and IT support teams through various channels (e.g., email, phone, chat).
• Proactive Customer Service Ops: Leverages AI-powered insights to proactively identify, monitor, and address potential issues before they impact customers.
• Dynamic Scheduling: Optimizes technician schedules based on real-time factors like traffic, weather, and technician availability, ensuring timely service delivery.
• FSM (Field Service Management) Customer Service: Enables field service technicians to access information, update work orders, and communicate with customers and support teams in real-time.

2. Delivering Seamless Customer Experiences with Streamlined Support and AI-Driven Solutions

Business Challenge

As soon as October hits, the holiday shopping season kicks into full gear, and majority of shoppers prefer online shopping. If your business operates online and offline, you may find it hard to keep up with the demand. Customers expect fast, same-day shipping and a seamless shopping experience, but if you’re still relying on outdated systems to manage the holiday rush, you’re likely struggling to keep up with high traffic and urgent customer inquiries.

Solution

Providing an exceptional customer experience goes beyond good service. With ServiceNow CSM, you get a modern, easy-to-use platform that streamlines everything into one dashboard. This helps your agents stay on top of cases, boost productivity, and deliver faster resolutions, keeping your customers happy and your business running smoothly throughout the busy season.

ServiceNow Features

• ServiceNow RSM: Retail Service Management empowers agents with real-time intelligence and productivity tools to deliver great experiences for both frontline staff and customers while reducing costs.
• Early Detection: Stay ahead of issues by quickly detecting problems, communicating status updates, and resolving customer concerns before they escalate.
• Payment Integrations: Seamless integrations simplify payment processing, allowing for faster transactions, reducing errors, and improving the overall customer purchasing experience.
• Service Catalog: A centralized request portal with mobile-enabled browsing allows customers to explore and approve requests easily. Features like drag-and-drop workflow, wish lists, and an automated test framework simplify administrative tasks.
• Virtual Agent: Offer 24/7 support with a chatbot that handles customer queries anytime, ensuring customers can access the help they need, even when agents are offline.
• Advanced Work Assignment (AWA): Optimize agent workload by automatically assigning cases based on priority and skill, ensuring high-priority cases are reviewed first.
• Knowledge Management: Provide agents with smooth transitions by providing access to a centralized knowledge base for quick resolution of customer issues.
• Digital Customer Journey Maps: Gain full visibility into the consumer experience, from mobile order to in-store pickup, ensuring a seamless journey at every touchpoint.

3. Transforming and Creating a Future of Stores with AI Implementation

Business Challenge

Retailers are facing several hurdles when it comes to implementing AI effectively. From inventory management and demand forecasting to balancing AI with consumer trust, the challenges are many. Retailers must also focus on unlocking personalization, staying agile, and improving customer service interactions. Moreover, making sure your data is ready for AI and integrating it seamlessly into the in-store experience adds another layer of complexity. Despite these challenges, only 40% of retailers currently employ AI in their operations, according to a recent IBM study, with that number expected to double in the coming years.

Solution

By deploying GenAI, retailers can transform operations and customer experiences. AI can boost customer support and improve ROI by enhancing personalization and convenience. It can also alleviate the financial and experiential pain of returns, making the process smoother for both customers and businesses. By integrating AI into both online and in-store experiences, retailers can streamline operations and offer a more responsive, personalized service to customers, building trust and improving satisfaction.

ServiceNow Features

• Conversational AI: Empower customers and agents with real-time, AI-powered chat solutions that offer instant support, streamline customer service, and enhance engagement through natural, human-like conversations.
• Self-Service and AI-Driven Issue Resolution: Enable customers to get help across multiple channels like text, email, and virtual agent, reducing wait times and freeing up agents.
• Predictive Intelligence: Leverage AI to predict customer behaviors, inventory needs, and operational trends, enabling proactive decision-making and better demand forecasting.
• Performance Analytics: Gain real-time insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) across retail operations, helping businesses optimize processes, identify improvement areas, and make data-driven decisions to boost performance.
• One Command Center: Leverage AI to integrate with existing infrastructure, such as cameras, sensors, and IoT devices, for better operational efficiency, improved customer experiences, and ultimately increased sales.
• Chat Summarization: Automatically generate summaries of customer chats, saving agents time and enabling them to quickly follow up or resolve issues based on previous conversations.
• Case Summarization: Use AI to summarize customer service cases for agents, making it easier to review and respond to inquiries, speeding up case resolution and improving customer satisfaction.

4. Employee Satisfaction and Labor Shortages with Unified ServiceNow Solutions

Business Challenge

Retail workers are often the unsung heroes of the holiday shopping season. With extended store hours, an uptick in customer stress, and occasional labor shortages, employees face more than their fair share of pressure. Seasonal workers are frequently called in to fill gaps. At the same time, regular staff remain on high alert, managing crowded aisles and long checkout lines and dealing with heightened tensions, especially when fights break out over the last item on the shelf. With all this added stress, it’s no surprise that many employees feel burnt out.

Solution

One effective way to address these challenges is by creating a unified experience across all touchpoints, including IT, HR, facilities, legal, and training. Retailers must prioritize the employee experience, offering simple, self-service solutions that make it easier for employees to address problems independently. By streamlining workflows and ensuring easily accessible support, businesses can ease stress, boost morale, and reduce turnover. Happy employees lead to a better customer experience, benefiting staff and shoppers.

ServiceNow Features

• Scheduling Predictable Shifts: Ensure a more balanced and predictable workforce schedule, reducing employee burnout during peak times. With ServiceNow, retailers can better manage shift planning, ensuring optimal staffing levels while accommodating employee preferences and availability.
• Integrated Platform Features: ServiceNow provides an integrated platform that brings together IT, HR, facilities, and training in one place, making it easier for employees to resolve issues and access the resources they need to succeed.
• Case Routing: Automatically route cases to the most appropriate agent or department based on priority and expertise, ensuring faster resolutions and improving customer service efficiency.
• Minimizing Staff Time Spent: Streamline repetitive administrative tasks, reducing the amount of time employees spend on manual processes. With automated workflows and self-service tools, employees can focus more on customer interactions and less on back-end tasks.
• Real-time Reporting: ServiceNow’s real-time reporting tools give executives a clear view of key operational issues, helping them make data-driven decisions that improve store performance and employee satisfaction.
• Work Order Management: Create, approve, or close work orders at each retail site with ease. This feature helps ensure that store maintenance, equipment, and facilities issues are promptly addressed, keeping the work environment safe and functional.
• Configurable Workspace: Provide agents with a unified platform to process cases and tasks. The workspace is configurable, allowing agents to see the full context of a customer or site issue, including location details, so they can address problems more effectively and quickly.

Streamline Your Operations This Holiday Season with a Trusted ServiceNow Partner

We understand how challenging the holiday season is but yet it the most rewarding and earning time of the year. With Aelum Consulting as your trusted ServiceNow Premier Partner, we ensure your operations run smoothly, helping you maximize efficiency and service delivery during peak times. Our team of over 180+ technical ServiceNow experts specializes in ITSM, CSM, RSM, TSM, HRSD, and everything ServiceNow, delivering tailored solutions to meet your needs. Connect with us now and take expert advices to make this holiday season merrier.