Getting support ready for the Q4 peak season

This year Black Friday falls on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30, followed right away by December gift orders and questions about whether a package will arrive before the holiday. The sale is eight weeks away. That is enough time for support if you start with the messengers and leave the promo copy to marketing. A new Viber or WhatsApp account is allowed to message only a handful of strangers first each day, and by late November there is no way to ramp it up.

We broke the preparation down by week. Inside you will find a staffing estimate for a sample store, when to connect extra numbers, auto-reply texts, and how to work with temporary staff.

Key takeaways

• Connect extra numbers in the first half of October. According to the E-chat help center, a new Viber account risks a ban as early as its fifth message to a new contact in a day, and a new WhatsApp account can handle 5-10 new conversations a day.

• Staff the line for the evening peak hour.

• To the messenger, an automated CRM message sent to someone who has never written to you is no different from a manual first message, and it uses up the same limit.

• Seasonal agents cost nothing extra because E-chat charges per number, not per user.

• Send the package tracking link after the customer replies.

Eight weeks to Black Friday, week by week

It is easier to count backward from November 27. The sale week and a few days after it will go entirely to answering customers, so setup has to be done by November 20, with the last days before launch reserved for a trial run on real inquiries.

December puts a different load on support. There are fewer questions about discounts and more about holiday delivery times, gift wrapping, and exchanges, and that flow lasts until mid-January.

October 1-15

The first two weeks go to calculations and setup. Pull last November from your CRM and count how many conversations came in on sale Friday and at what hours. If you have no history, take a regular month and add the growth you saw during past promotions.

This is also when you connect extra numbers. In E-chat it takes four steps, and linking to your CRM by following the guide takes about a minute, so the timeline is not set by the tech. It is set by messenger limits for fresh accounts, covered in a separate section below. If you are not using the service yet, the seven-day free trial is enough to test it with your CRM on one channel before paying for the rest.

October 16 - November 20

While the channels connected in early October build up incoming conversations, templates and auto-replies are set up in the CRM, and seasonal agents are hired and trained on last year's conversations. By November 20, every agent should answer a dozen test inquiries in the messenger they will be working in on Friday.

Sale week and after

From November 23 to 30, the support lead checks the list of unanswered conversations twice a day, at the start and end of the shift. Lengthy reviews wait until December.

After Cyber Monday, the promo code templates come down and delivery time texts go up in their place. Ask your delivery service in advance for the last day an order can still arrive before the holiday, and put it in the template as a date, without the word soon.

In January, support handles returns and exchanges, and the templates change for the third time.

How many agents to put on the line

Support is measured in minutes of work, and message counts tell you little. One customer sends a single message with the order number already in it, another sends five photos and a voice note. It is easier to count in conversations and the average time an agent spends on one conversation, including looking up the order in the CRM.

Sample calculation for a store with 80 inquiries a day

As an example, take a store that gets 80 messenger inquiries on a regular day, and assume traffic triples on sale Friday to 240. An agent spends 6 minutes per conversation.

A regular day adds up to 480 minutes, or eight hours of pure work. Friday is 1,440 minutes, or 24 hours. In an eight-hour shift a person gets about six hours of net time, and the rest goes to breaks, shift handovers, and questions to the warehouse. Two people cover a regular day, four cover Friday, and with a buffer for someone calling in sick and for conversations that drag on for half an hour, five.

The evening peak

The daily total hides the evening. Say a third of the day's inquiries arrive between 7 and 11 p.m., when people scroll through deals after work. Out of 240 inquiries, that is 80 in four hours, or 20 an hour. At 6 minutes per conversation, that is 120 minutes of work per hour, so in the evening you need two people on the line at once, even if one can handle the daytime.

That shapes the schedule. Two people in the morning and two on a later shift until midnight will cover Friday better than four working nine to six who head home by 7 p.m. After midnight, an auto-reply promising an answer in the morning is enough.

Connect extra numbers in October

Messengers do not limit incoming messages, and E-chat sets no limit on the number of messages or contacts either. The bottleneck is elsewhere. During the season, support sends a lot of first messages. It confirms orders placed on the website, warns that an item is out of stock, reschedules deliveries. The messenger treats every such message to someone who has not chatted with you there before as the start of a new conversation, and a fresh account is allowed very few of those.

Automated CRM messages follow the same limits. The messenger does not care whether an agent pressed the button or a robot fired on an order status change.

Viber

According to the E-chat help center, a new Viber number can be banned as early as its fifth message to new contacts in a day. The help center recommends no more than 20 new messages a day to people you have no conversation with. Once a customer has replied even once, E-chat has observed no limit. Treat an account that was ever banned as new, even if it is several years old.

After activation, Viber must not be deleted from the phone it was activated on, and the "Change Number" feature must not be used. The phone itself can be turned off and put in a desk drawer, and this does not affect the service.

Telegram

Telegram has no official limits. The E-chat help center recommends no more than 20 new contacts a day, and up to 40 for older active accounts. Messaging by username is safer than by phone number. For violations, Telegram first restricts the account temporarily, and according to E-chat's observations the pause lasts 4 to 24 hours when working through the API, while systematic violations lead to a permanent ban. A day without Telegram on sale Friday means the evening shift has no channel.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp connects through the web version, so its limits are the same as for a personal account. Older active accounts handle 20-30 new conversations a day, new ones 5-10, and there are no restrictions in ongoing conversations. The help center recommends spreading messages throughout the day, varying greetings, and not putting links in first messages.

The advice about links is the one most often broken during the season, since you want to send the tracking link right away. Send the waybill number as text, and the link after the customer replies.

How conversation history builds up

You cannot warm up a new channel with a mass mailing, since that is exactly how it gets banned. It builds history on incoming messages. Put it behind the messenger button on your website or in the order email, and customers will start writing on their own. Each of those conversations is started by the customer, and after that you can reply without touching the new contact limit. A number connected in the first half of October will have six weeks of incoming traffic behind it by November 27.

For example, take 150 orders on sale day that the store wants to confirm via Viber with people who have never written to it. Following the help center's recommendation, an old number with history can take 20 such contacts a day, while a new one is at risk from the fifth. Staying within the recommendation would take eight old numbers or almost forty new ones. The remaining option is to get the customer to write first. The order thank-you page gets a messenger button asking the customer to message for confirmation, and the reply goes into an already open conversation.

[Expert insight] According to the E-chat help center, 90% of Viber bans come down to one thing, too many initiated conversations. In a regular month support rarely writes first, and nobody notices the new number limit. In November, one account takes on order confirmations, delivery changes, and automated CRM messages all at once, and all of them go to people who have not written there before. If Viber gets banned in the middle of the sale, there is no time left to warm up a replacement. So connect extra numbers early and use them only for incoming conversations for the first few weeks.

Set up auto-replies and templates in the CRM

Auto-replies, status change robots, and the template library all live in the CRM. The service delivers what is sent from the CRM to the customer's Viber, Telegram, or WhatsApp and puts the reply back in the record. Write the texts where your agents work, and test them on a sample order to see where the message went and whose name it was sent under.

Replies outside working hours

A night auto-reply says when a person will respond and asks for what will save the agent time in the morning. Something like this works. "Thanks, we got your message. Our team is available from 9 a.m. and will reply in order. If your question is about an order, send us the order number so we can find it faster". During sale week, add the date the discount ends so the customer is not worried about missing it by morning.

If your CRM can limit frequency, have the auto-reply fire once per conversation per night. Otherwise a customer who sent five photos will get five identical replies. And have the same robot create a morning task for the assigned agent so night conversations do not get buried under morning ones.

Templates for recurring questions

Take the list from last year's conversations. The questions that come up most in the season are where is my order, why did the promo code not work, when will the item be back in stock, will delivery make it by a certain date, and how do I return a gift. Each needs a template that an agent can adjust for the customer in a few seconds.

Here is one for promo codes. "The promo code applies to items marked with the sale badge in the catalog and does not cover discounted items. Send us a link to the item, and I will check the price manually". The second sentence keeps the conversation with the agent, and the reply does not read like a mass mailing.

What not to hand over to templates

Complaints about defects, double charges, and lost packages are handled by a person who writes in their own words. A customer recognizes a templated reply to a complaint instantly and forwards it into a review.

First messages to new contacts are also written for the person, at least with their name and order date. The E-chat help center article on WhatsApp explicitly lists identical templates with no personalization among the reasons for bans.

A seasonal team with no extra per-user cost

E-chat does not limit the number of agents, and you pay only for connected numbers. A temporary agent gets a CRM account and messages customers from the same account as the permanent staff. The customer sees no difference.

How to split the work

For the season, it helps to split the tasks. The old number with history handles placed orders and delivery, and it is also the one that writes first to those who need it. The new ones take pre-purchase questions from buttons on the website and in ads. Conversation routing between agents is set up with CRM rules, if your CRM supports it.

Choose the messenger for the second number based on last year's stats in your own CRM. If November conversations mostly went through Viber, add a second Viber number, even if everyone at the store next door chats on Telegram.

Access for temporary staff

An employee who joins for two months cannot take the phone number, export the database, or move conversations to a personal chat. The conversation history stays in the customer record, and after they leave in January, the next agent sees the whole conversation.

Before walking a newcomer through the instructions, give them an hour with last November's conversations. Seasonal questions repeat year after year, and they will see how colleagues answered right in the records.

A store owner who takes the late evening shift replies straight from the messenger on their phone, and those messages also land in the CRM.

What seasonal numbers will cost

Under E-chat pricing, Telegram costs $16.99 per number per month, Viber $29.99, and WhatsApp $15.99. As an example, take two extra Viber numbers and one WhatsApp number for October, November, and December. Without discounts, that is $75.97 a month, or $227.91 for three months.

When you pay for several numbers at once, the discount reaches 30% for three months, 34% for six months, and 40% for a year. The homepage promises additional discounts when connecting three or more numbers, and terms for 20 or more are discussed separately. Every plan includes the "Activate in advance" feature.

If payments go through accounting with an approval process, submit the request in the first week of October so that six weeks of incoming traffic do not shrink to three.

FAQ

Question: How much do I pay if I only need a number for the season?

Answer: E-chat pricing is monthly, so a number for October, November, and December is paid for three months. The conversations that went through it stay in the customer records in your CRM.

Question: How many messages a day can one account handle on sale Friday?

Answer: The service itself does not limit the number of messages. The messengers do, and only for first messages to new contacts. In a conversation where the customer has already replied, WhatsApp sets no limits, and according to E-chat's observations, neither does Viber.

Question: What should I do if a messenger restricts me in the middle of the sale?

Answer: Move new conversations to a backup number with history, and continue ongoing ones where they are, unless the messenger has blocked the whole account. According to E-chat's observations, a Telegram restriction lifts after 4-24 hours. E-chat support answers on Viber and in the Telegram bot @echat_support_bot, with an average response time of 3 minutes on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Question: Do I need a separate phone for each Viber number?

Answer: It is activated by scanning a QR code with the phone that has that SIM card. After that, the phone can be turned off. Do not delete Viber from it or use the "Change Number" feature, or the connection to the service will break.

Question: Our CRM is not on the integrations list. Can we make it by November?

Answer: E-chat has more than 20 ready-made integrations. If your CRM is not among them, Viber connects to it through ApiX-Drive or Wepster, and for Telegram and WhatsApp you build your own integration using the E-chat API. For custom development, allow extra time and start in October.

Question: Can a temporary agent reply from their own phone?

Answer: Replies can be sent from the CRM or from the messenger on the phone the number is linked to. Messages sent from devices are saved to the CRM automatically. An employee cannot move a customer to their own personal messenger.