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☕️ Hey Operators, Ready for the Wild Weeks Ahead?

Everyone plans for New-year sales. Few plan for New-year hangovers.

Let’s fix that!...

The Indian D2C festive season is basically a stress test disguised as a marketing opportunity.

Your marketing’s screaming, your couriers are sweating, your CRM is crying — and you’re probably praying to 1300+ gods.

But here’s the truth:

So, let’s talk about both.

What to do before the festive madness, and how to manage after the noise dies down.

A. Before the Holidays: Prep, Predict, and Prevent

The pre-holiday window is where serious brands quietly gear up while everyone else argues about discount percentages.

1. Marketing: Warm Up Your Old Engines

Last year’s buyers? They’re your cheapest conversions this year.

*Layer/Filter lookalikes using CRM data:

means using your existing first-party customer data (from your CRM) — like purchase history, AOV, category interest, geography, and engagement — to build lookalike audiences across platforms.

In simple terms:

• You export or sync your CRM’s best-performing customer segments (for example, “people who bought during last Diwali and didn’t return products”).

• Use datasets to find similar users who share behavioural or demographic traits.

• You then “layer” or filter that lookalike group by additional criteria (for example, “interested in skincare” or “lives in Tier-1 cities”) to make targeting sharper.

So “layer lookalikes using CRM data” =
👉 Take your real customer data → build a lookalike audience → refine it using behaviour or demographics → spend smarter during campaigns.

1. Small brands: double down on repeat buyers.

2. Bigger brands: pre-launch waitlists work wonders for hype control.

• Announce early access or “waitlist sign-ups.”

Example: “Join the Diwali Early Access List and get first dibs on limited stock.”

• Collect sign-ups in advance via CRM or WhatsApp.

Each signup gets logged with basic data (email, phone, region, product interest).

• Launch the sale in phases.

2. NDR & Logistics: Choose Speed Over Luck

There’s no “one-size-fits-all” courier strategy in India. Treat it like chess, not checkers.

• Pull data from last year’s courier dashboards.

• Flag PIN codes with NDR rates above 15%.

• Assign alternate partners based on need.

• Use WhatsApp verification for COD orders (it cuts fake attempts fast).

Pro move: Let your RTO Suite score carriers by region, speed, and reliability.
(It’s like Tinder for logistics — minus the ghosting.)

3. Returns: Don’t Let Refunds Ruin Revenue

Returns happen — but they don’t have to hurt.

RMS + CRM combo helps identify why things come back — and lets you fix root causes before they multiply.

4. CRM: Automate Empathy (Before It’s 3AM and You’re Replying to DMs)

• Pre-tag common festive queries: “Where’s my order?”, “Gift option?”, “Late dispatch?”.

• Use AI Copilot + CRM to spot recurring issue clusters (e.g., “spoilt batch – Delhi region”).

Instead of reading each ticket manually, the system does:

• Text similarity match
  (“spoilt”, “damaged”, “leaked”, “bad condition” → same bucket)

• Geo-tag match
  (PIN codes in Delhi NCR)

• SKU match
  (Product X repeatedly reported damaged)

The system groups these tickets automatically and says:

“⚠️ Possible Spoilt Batch Detected — Delhi Region”

“7 customers reported ‘bad condition / leakage’ for SKU X in the past 3 hours.”

This is called issue clustering.

• Pre-schedule macros for festival FAQs.

• Automate reassurance messages — festive tone, transparent ETA.

✨ Tone check: “We’re running at full speed, and your gift will arrive on time” > “We’re working on it”.

5. Checkout: Maximise Every Basket

This is your conversion moment — don’t waste it.

7. Automation & Staffing: Because Humans Need Holidays Too

• Queue refund and confirmation flows for automation.

• Assign fallback for system overrides.

• Let Co-pilot watch for anomalies — courier mismatches, payment drops, data sync gaps.

• Let use-case specific chatbots take care of 92% of all queries

• Ensure real-time auto communication between Brand/Customer/Logistics Partner to minimise NDRs

B. After the Holidays: Analyse, Adapt, and Reset

You’ve survived the rush. Now’s when your system shows what it actually learned.

1. Marketing: The After-Party Still Converts

Yes, people still shop after holidays — usually for clearance, gifts, or revenge (on missed deals).

Feed data from post-festive sales into our Journey Management System (JMS) — it identifies late-cycle converters for the next campaign.

2. Returns & Refunds: The Avalanche Phase

The first week post-sale? Pure chaos. But also, pure insight.

3. Carrier Review: Time to Grade the Couriers

Feed these back into RTO Suite → automated route optimisation for the next surge.

• Small brands: prioritise consistency.

• Big brands: run predictive courier allocation.

4. CRM: From Firefighting to Feedback

Now it’s about calm, not campaigns.

• Auto-send thank-you messages, review collection, short surveys and more.

• Identify recurring complaint clusters (AI spots trends before humans do).

• Shift chatbot and agent tone from “Sell” → “Support.”

• Reduce support frequency to normal cadence.

5. Checkout & Automation Reset

• Remove urgency pop-ups — the clock’s stopped ticking.

• Replace “Hurry” messaging with “Still available, at calm prices.”

• Adjust routing from high-load → efficiency mode.

• Schedule data clean-up automations for order/courier mismatches.

Post-holiday goal: stability > speed.

Data: Don’t Archive It — Train On It

Your festive data is your next year’s crystal ball.

Feed it all into your Customer Journey Optimisation  — and next year’s prep writes itself.

To Wrap it Up

So here’s the takeaway:

• Before holidays: get predictable.

• After holidays: get reflective.

• And between the two: automate ruthlessly, analyse relentlessly, and maybe — just maybe — take a nap.

That’s the end of our talk on “The Holiday Balancing Act: Pre-Holiday & Post-Holiday Planning for D2C India.”...

☕ See you on the next coffee date!

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