As the festive… or holiday season approaches, retail customer experience (CX) teams face mounting pressure – not just to process and close support tickets, but to handle every customer interaction with clarity and precision during the busiest time of the year. In today’s fast-paced retail landscape, both in-store and online, traditional support methods often fall short. While scripts and FAQs can guide your customer service agents, they can’t fully address all the challenges customers encounter, from complex purchases and shipping delays to product troubleshooting and more!
What your retail agents and your customers really need this holiday season goes beyond traditional call and contact center interactions. They need guided, visual support that feels as personal as being instore.
Visual engagement tools make this possible. With omnichannel retail service solutions such as video support, screen sharing and co-browsing your agents are able to see what the customer sees, guide them in real time, and reduce the friction that often leads to abandoned carts or unnecessary product returns.
The result is not only faster resolutions and higher conversions but also a stress-free, confident shopping experience for your customers, building loyalty that lasts beyond the holiday season.
The Holiday Challenge: Complexity Meets Volume
Every holiday season brings a familiar surge of customer inquiries – order tracking and delivery delays, gift wrapping and packaging options, cancellations, returns and exchange policies, product-specific questions and technical support… and payment and checkout issues – as shoppers race to complete their Christmas gift shopping for friends and loved ones. This year, nearly 40% of all festive shopping spend is projected to happen during a span of just five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. And while this seasonal increase in support tickets is certainly not a surprise, the sheer volume in such a short span of time can overwhelm even the most well-prepared retailers.
Retail CX agents often find themselves juggling a flood of requests across multiple channels, while customers grow increasingly impatient with long wait times and slow, static responses. This creates a growing risk of customer frustration, which can hurt retailers during the most important revenue-driving time of the year.
Retail CX agents face even greater challenges during the holiday season, especially when handling high-value or complex purchases on top of increased customer volume. Whether it’s setting up electronics, confirming device compatibility, or understanding returns procedures, customers often abandon their cart or initiate returns because they can’t get the clarity they need… promptly.
This is further compounded by the need to manage multiple channels simultaneously – in-store, online, mobile apps, email, and social – all while seasonal temporary support staff may lack deep product knowledge. Agents may struggle to resolve nuanced issues, leading to reduced first-call resolution (FCR) rates, missed sales opportunities, and negative impressions on your brand.
Retailers that fail to meet customer expectations risk higher cart abandonment, more returns, and lost holiday revenue, underscoring the need for smarter, visually guided support.
Why Scripts Aren’t Enough Anymore
Scripts serve a purpose in retail CX – to ensure consistency and compliance across large call and contact centers. They work well for routine inquiries and basic troubleshooting, but during the busy festive season, customer interactions are rarely simple. With complex product setups, last-minute order changes, and shipping uncertainties, a one-size-fits-all script just can’t anticipate every scenario, leaving both agents and customers frustrated.
Did you know that 70% of customers will abandon a brand after just two negative experiences? Relying on scripts during the holiday season is therefore risky. Scripts provide only words – they don’t allow agents to offer dynamic, personalized support.
When a customer is struggling to assemble a product, track a shipment, or navigate a complex checkout, static instructions increase stress and decrease confidence in their purchase. Agents then face longer calls, higher average handling times (AHT), and repeat interactions – all during the holiday rush.
Traditional support channels like voice and chat that rely on scripts can escalate small issues into larger pain points. Without the ability to show rather than tell, agents are forced into lengthy explanations that often confuse customers more than they clarify. To keep holiday shoppers happy, boost conversion rates, and increase sales, your retail agents need more than scripts; they need tools that let them see, guide, and resolve visually and in real time.
Equip Agents with Sight: What Visual Support Unlocks
Grypp’s visual engagement tools empower retail CX agents to handle complex issues more effectively, and deliver a more intuitive, human-centric support experience through sight. Whether it’s walking a shopper through checkout, identifying a damaged product, or helping set up a new device, visual engagement tools deliver seamless, omnichannel retail service experiences that drive conversions and build loyalty across every touchpoint.
Agents can also visually guide customers through promotional bundles, limited time offers, and upsells, ensuring shoppers fully understand festive campaigns and don’t miss key deals.
Guided Basket Build
Wherever your customers are connecting from – in-store or remotely – Grypp helps hesitant buyers configure bundles or complete transactions. Agents can guide shoppers through live product comparisons, guided basket builds, and tailored upsells/cross-sells using video, co-browsing, media sharing, and document handling for a streamlined omnichannel experience.
Diagnose damaged items, resolve setup issues instantly, and prevent unnecessary returns with VideoAssist, one-way video streaming that reimagines remote support. Augmented reality (AR) overlays allow agents to provide step-by-step visual guidance in real time, reducing frustration and boosting customer confidence.
Customers can submit warranty claims, upload receipts, and share photos of defective products in real time. By managing documents directly in session, agents resolve support issues faster while maintaining full compliance.
QR Concierge and OneClick Concierge
See the conversation with instant, customer-initiated support accessed via links and QR codes. Grypp’s customer-initiated touchpoints make it easy to start visual conversations directly from emails, product packaging, webpages, print material and in-store POS. By enabling customers to scan QR codes or click links to initiate a support interaction, you can serve in-store customers remotely during peak foot traffic times with no app required.
Allow your retail agents to visually guide customers through your product pages, checkout processes, or support flows live with Universal CoBrowse Unlike basic screen sharing, Universal CoBrowse offers secure, encrypted collaboration without downloads or data exposure. Boost customer engagement for retail with visual guidance and improve conversion rates by allowing your agents to see the solution in real time.
Operational Wins for Retail CX Leaders
For retail CX leaders, the holiday season is a high stakes balancing act of delivering seamless customer service while keeping operational costs in check. Grypp’s visual engagement tools help maintain that balance by driving real operational efficiencies. By enabling agents to see and solve issues in real time, Grypp improves First Call Resolution (FCR) by up to 12%, reduces repeat contacts, and lessens escalations.
Visual engagement tools scale seamlessly during peak holiday surges, helping agents handle increased volumes without adding headcount or burning out staff.
Grypp also gives retail CX leaders immediate insight into what’s working and what’s not through in-session CX ratings, feeding directly into analytics dashboards for real-time, actionable insights. Deployment takes just days, with zero downtime, full agent adoption, and no downloads or apps required, even across large, distributed teams.
All sessions are secure and encrypted, protecting customer data and ensuring compliance with payment and privacy regulations – a critical consideration during peak shopping periods.
Ready for What’s Next: Post-Holiday Impact
The value of visual support tools doesn’t end when the holiday rush winds down. In fact, their impact can be even more significant in the months that follow. Visual interactions naturally create better records of support sessions, providing detailed context that’s invaluable for training, quality assurance, and future support scenarios.
Insights from visual sessions help refine support and sales strategies by identifying friction points, complex product pain areas, and opportunities to improve conversion and reduce returns. This information is invaluable for optimizing post-holiday campaigns and ongoing CX improvements.
New agents ramp up faster by learning from real visual sessions, and support teams benefit from clearer documentation and actionable insights, laying the foundation for long-term customer experience excellence and loyalty.
See the Conversation This Holiday Season
The verdict is in… relying solely on scripts is a static, outdated retail support strategy. Instead, unite through sight is a dynamic customer-centric approach that elevates engagement and improves your bottom line.
This holiday season, give your agents the ability to see the conversation, delight your customers, and turn peak-season challenges into higher sales and happier shoppers.
Book a demo today to discover how visual retail CX transforms your support experience.
See the conversation. Solve in real-time.
FAQs: Empower CX Teams Across E-Commerce and Stores with Visual Support
What is visual engagement in retail customer service?
Visual engagement lets agents see what customers see and guide them in real time using tools like co-browsing, screen sharing, live video, and augmented reality. This improves clarity, reduces errors, and enhances the overall shopping experience.
How can visual support help during the busy holiday season?
During peak holiday periods, visual support helps agents handle high volumes, complex purchases, and last-minute issues quickly. It reduces cart abandonment, unnecessary returns, and long call handling times while boosting customer satisfaction.
Can visual engagement tools be used across multiple channels?
Tools like co-browsing, video support, and QR Concierge work across online, in-store, mobile, and email channels, providing a seamless omnichannel experience for customers and agents alike.
How do Grypp’s tools improve first-call resolution (FCR)?
By allowing agents to visually guide customers through product setups, troubleshooting, and checkout, Grypp reduces repeat contacts and follow-ups. Retailers report up to a 12% improvement in FCR during peak periods.
Are visual engagement tools secure and compliant?
Absolutely. Grypp’s platform is secure, encrypted, and fully compliant with data privacy and payment regulations, making it safe to use for transactions, warranty claims, and sensitive customer interactions.
Do customers need to download an app to use Grypp?
No. Customers can start a visual support session via QR codes, one-click links,directly from your website or mobile app, making it fast and frictionless, even for in-store shoppers.
Can visual support help with holiday promotions or bundle sales?
Yes. Agents can visually guide shoppers through promotional offers, product bundles, and upsells in real time, ensuring customers understand deals and complete purchases confidently.
How quickly can Grypp be deployed in a retail environment?
Grypp can be deployed in days, not weeks, with zero downtime and full agent adoption in the first week, even across large, distributed teams.
What are the post-holiday benefits of using visual support tools?
Beyond the holiday rush, visual sessions provide valuable data for training, quality assurance, and sales optimization and help reduce unnecessary returns. Agents learn faster, processes improve, and CX leaders gain insights to reduce future friction and enhance CX.
How does visual engagement improve customer loyalty?
By reducing friction, preventing errors, and delivering personalized guidance, visual support creates a stress-free, confident shopping experience, increasing customer satisfaction, repeat purchases, and long-term loyalty.
