Why the day after December 25th is critical for CX leaders

Most retail teams dread December 26th. The returns flood. The exhausted staff. The endless "wrong size" conversations.

But here's what they're missing.

December 26th isn't a cleanup operation. It's the single largest customer acquisition opportunity of your entire year. And most brands are completely blowing it.

The gift recipient you've never thought about

Think about who walks into your store or contacts your team on December 26th. They're not your customers. Not yet.

They're people who received your product as a gift. They never chose your brand. Never visited your website. Never read a review or compared options. Someone else decided they should own something you make.

Where brands lose before the conversation starts

Gift recipients face friction that your actual customers never deal with. They don't have the order number. They don't know your return policy. They might not even know which retailer sold the gift. On Amazon, gift recipients can't get instant refunds and must use the 17-digit order number from the packing slip or digital gift receipt.

When they finally reach your team, they're either frustrated by the runaround or pleasantly surprised that you made it easy. That first interaction writes the script for whether they ever think about your brand again.

The conversion math nobody talks about

Here's what makes December 26th so valuable.

These gift recipients already have your product. No shipping wait. No "add to cart" hesitation. No comparison shopping. It's in their hands right now.

If the item doesn't fit, you have one conversation to turn "this doesn't work" into "I'll find the right size." If they don't like the color, you have one moment to show them the version they would have chosen.

Handle that moment well, and you've converted a cold prospect into a customer who just made their first purchase from you. Handle it poorly, and you've confirmed they were right to never seek you out in the first place.

The opportunity is massive. Roughly 77% of consumers planned to return some of their holiday gifts. For many brands, that's hundreds of thousands of people experiencing your service for the first time on a single day.

What winners do differently on December 26th

The brands that win this day don't just process returns efficiently. They recognize the relationship opportunity.

They make exchanges effortless. No runaround about order numbers or original payment methods. The gift recipient says, "I need a medium instead of a large" and it happens. Fast.

They proactively offer alternatives. When someone says the color isn't right, the response isn't just "we can process that return." It's "here are the three colors this comes in, and I can have the one you want shipped today."

They capture the conversion. A gift recipient who exchanges isn't a cost to manage. They're a customer who just told you exactly what they want and permitted you to send it to them.

And critically, they remember this person exists beyond December 26th. The gift recipient who exchanged for the right size? They just joined your customer base. Treat them like it.

This is where most brands hit a wall. December 26th brings volume that overwhelms traditional support systems. Long hold times. Transferred calls. Agents are starting from scratch because the system doesn't track gift recipient context.

AI changes the equation entirely.

Instant responses at volume. No hold times when gift recipients need to initiate a return or exchange. The conversation starts immediately, even when traffic spikes 10x normal levels. Complete context without the hassle.

The brands using AI to handle December 26th aren't just processing returns faster. They're converting gift recipients into customers at scale, during the exact moment most competitors are drowning in backlog.