5 Tips for Holiday Omnichannel Success

For this holiday season, consider extending phone and online-based customer service hours. If a customer is looking to shop at 10 p.m. and there's no available service representative, it's possible to lose that sale and following visits.

5. Prepare for a marathon, not a sprint. With the holiday season seemingly longer than ever, it's key for retailers to pace themselves with consistent effort from the beginning to end. A large percentage of shoppers — between 36 percent and 40 percent according to research by Consumer Reports and Deloitte — don't begin holiday shopping until after Thanksgiving. There's still time to establish a schedule of marketing and promotion cycles to generate interest across critical categories and touchpoints.