As the leader of the support and technical operations team at Acoustic, my number-one priority at this time of year is our holiday readiness program. From Diwali (November 4) to Boxing Day (December 26), this is the World Cup of time periods for customer support and customer success professionals in MarTech. And with data showing that 31% of shoppers started their holiday shopping in June, being over-prepared is more important than ever given both consumer eagerness and expectations post COVID. 

What does “holiday readiness” mean exactly at Acoustic? To answer that question, we first must understand what holiday readiness means for our customers. And for many of our customers, specifically in retail and ecommerce as well as travel and hospitality, the period between November through December is not only the “most wonderful” but also the most important time of the year.   

In many of these cases, our customers use the small window between Thanksgiving and Christmas to drive most of their annual revenue. Their ability to be successful in running their marketing campaigns and driving awareness of their brands through email, SMS, and mobile push, while also analyzing and reacting in real-time to their website traffic, are mission-critical tasks. This means we need to make sure that we are there to do our part for our partners and customers so they can be successful during this very critical (and exciting!) period.   

For us, this time of year can be defined by one word: preparation. We believe if we're prepared, we can avoid a lot of the problems and common pitfalls that many customers run into during the holidays. And it starts with us: 

• Ensuring that our systems are stable and performing 
• Making certain that we work to predict as many scenarios as we can in advance, but also being ready for whatever we can’t predict 
• Planning and increasing capacity so that we’re sufficiently staffed and ready to handle any uptick in work or requests from our customers, so we can address issues quickly 
• Hardening the product code base and investing in our infrastructure 
• Conducting customer outreach to educate customer teams around best practices 
• Committing to around-the-clock support, regardless of geography, on every single day of the timeframe—including Thanksgiving and Christmas   

As we move into the late August timeframe each year, we proactively work with our partners and customers to make sure they’re aware of our best practices and can activate on tips for avoiding common mistakes. We mobilize our entire Acoustic team early so that by the time we reach November, we’re no longer planning but purely in risk-mitigation mode, reacting in real-time to customer concerns.  

One of the greatest tools in our toolkit is the Acoustic Academy content made available to all customers. Materials housed here include actionable checklists and best practice recommendations designed to guide customers to ensure they’re leveraging our products in the most effective ways that will lead them to the best outcomes.  

And what’s a good outcome? Conversion! 

Our focus is: how can we help our customers’ marketing campaigns drive shoppers to make a purchase? Every customer's business is unique, so there are several things to evaluate prior to the holiday season kickoff that ultimately contribute to conversion rates, including: 

• Make sure that deliverability and email reputation are in good health 
• Confirm analytics are enabled on our customers’ websites so they can understand shopper behavior and react accordingly 
• Double-check that abandoned shopping carts are being monitored and systems for sending reminders back to consumers are in order  

Holiday readiness is of course an annual effort, but COVID has spurred significant industry changes and shifts in consumer behavior that are affecting the processes of our customers. Last year, we saw a significant increase in online commerce given stay-at-home orders were in effect in many geographies.  

In 2021, as lockdowns have lifted, many companies that didn’t launch new products or services last year are again bringing new things to market. As a result, they’re working to generate brand awareness which means a much higher intake in workload for our platform. What I believe makes Acoustic unique is our whole-company focus on a singular mission of helping to drive success for our customers during this peak season. Happy shopping to all!