The Second Wave: Why January Brings More Contacts Than December
Every peak plan is built around December. Staffing ramps up for it, forecasts are argued over it, and on the 26th most teams exhale. That is the mistake. The post-holiday returns surge begins the same day, and it does not look like the wave that came before it. December contacts are mostly people asking where a parcel is. January contacts are people sending parcels back, chasing refunds and filing claims for deliveries that arrived late or damaged. They take longer, touch more systems and are more likely to come back a second time. For a carrier, a 3PL or a retailer’s fulfillment desk, the second wave is smaller in headlines and heavier in work, and it lands just as seasonal capacity is being released.
December Is Volume. January Is Work.
The timing is tight. Adobe’s data on the 2025 holiday season showed returns rising 4.7% in the six days after Christmas, and found that one in every seven returns of the entire season happened between December 26 and December 31.
The base it sits on is large. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2025 returns landscape, an estimated 19.3% of online sales were expected to be returned in 2025. Roughly one online order in five comes back, and a disproportionate share of those start their journey in the week most support teams are standing down.
For the logistics side, each return is not one event. It is a label, a pickup or drop-off, a scan, a receipt at the warehouse, an inspection and a refund trigger, and the customer may contact someone at any of those points. That is the case for planning for the five weeks after Christmas as a season of its own.
The staffing calendar runs the other way. Seasonal contracts are typically written to the shipping peak, so the most experienced temporary agents leave in the same week the hardest contacts begin. The team that handled December at full strength meets January at reduced strength, with permanent staff also taking the leave they postponed.
There is a difference in mood as well. A December caller is waiting for something they want. A January caller is disappointed with something they received, or still waiting for money they are owed. The delay that was tolerated before Christmas is not tolerated after it.
The monthly picture points the same way. Salesforce figures reported by Digital Commerce 360 in late January 2026 put returns at 12.2% of global online orders in the first two weeks of the year, and noted that January remains the month with the largest number of returns overall. No public dataset counts service contacts by month, but every one of those returns is a reason to make one.
How the Contact Mix Shifts
The table sets each contact type against its direction in January and the measured figure that explains it. Shares of a queue vary too much from one business to the next to publish as an average, so the last column uses what has actually been counted.
| Contact type | In January | Effort per contact | The measured signal behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Order status and tracking | Falls sharply | Low. Often resolved by self-service | Holiday orders are placed by December 31, the end of the season as Adobe measures it |
| Pre-delivery changes (address, date, hold) | Falls | Low to medium | Same cause: few new shipments are in transit |
| Return initiation and labels | Rises sharply | Medium | One in seven of the season’s returns fell on December 26 to 31 (Adobe); January still has the largest number of returns overall (Salesforce) |
| Refund status | Rises sharply | Medium. Frequently a repeat contact | 12.2% of global online orders were returned in January 1 to 14, 2026 (Salesforce), each with a refund pending |
| Exchanges and replacements | Rises | High. Two shipments, one conversation | 19.3% of online sales were expected to be returned in 2025 (NRF) |
| Late, lost or damaged delivery | Holds, then becomes claims | High. Needs carrier and warehouse input | No public benchmark. Follows December delivery volume with a lag |
| Claims and disputes | Rises | High. Documentation and deadlines | No public benchmark. About 9% of all returns are fraudulent (NRF), which adds screening |
The quick contacts shrink and the slow ones grow. A tracking question takes a minute and usually ends there. A refund-status contact means finding the return scan, checking whether the warehouse has received and inspected the item, and confirming when the money moves. If any of those steps is late, the customer calls again.
Exchanges are the clearest example. One conversation sets off two shipments, an inbound return and an outbound replacement, each with its own tracking, and the customer expects the agent to see both. Claims add paperwork: a damaged parcel needs photographs, a delivery record and a decision about who bears the cost. None of that fits a handle-time target written for tracking questions.
That is why a January queue can look shorter and still take more hours to clear, and why teams built for December speed struggle. The work calls for shipment tracking, claims and returns coordination in a single desk, since the customer does not care which of the three functions owns the delay.
Automation helps less here than it did a month earlier. Order status can be deflected to a tracking page. A damaged parcel with a disputed delivery photo cannot, and those are exceptions that automation cannot close without a person who has the authority to decide.
Planning for a Wave That Tapers in February
The adjustments are modest, and they have to be decided before the first wave, not after it.
- Stagger the release of seasonal staff. Keep a trained core through January instead of ending every contract on the 26th
- Cross-train before peak. An agent who only learned tracking in November cannot process a claim in January
- Tell customers before they ask. A message at return scan, at warehouse receipt and at refund removes most refund-status contacts
- Watch the claims clock. Carrier claim windows are fixed, and a backlog in January becomes a write-off in February
The first of these is a contract decision, which is why it has to be made in the fall. A staggered release costs a few weeks of extra payroll for a smaller group. Weighed against a January backlog of refunds and claims, each generating repeat contacts, it is usually the cheaper option. The measure to watch is repeat contacts per return, since that is what an understaffed desk produces first.
The handoff between the parties matters as much as the headcount. When the carrier, the warehouse and the merchant each see a different piece of the return, the customer ends up coordinating them. One shared view of the return, visible to whoever answers, removes the repeat contact. It is a concrete case of what service means inside a logistics operation.
The merchant’s own team has the mirror-image problem: refund policy questions rise just as the people who know the policy go on leave. Extending post-purchase support for retailers through the end of January closes that gap.
Conclusion
The second wave is not a smaller copy of the first. December asks where the parcel is; January asks for the money back. The contacts are slower, more likely to repeat and more dependent on information held by someone else. Operations that plan capacity only for the shipping peak meet the hardest work with the thinnest team. Keeping a trained core in place for a few more weeks costs less than the backlog it prevents. If your seasonal contracts all end on the same day, that date is worth revisiting before the season begins.
FAQ: Post-holiday Returns Surge
1. Why are customer contacts harder to handle in January than in December?
Because the mix changes. December is dominated by order-status and delivery questions that are quick to answer. January brings returns, refund-status follow-ups, exchanges and claims for late or damaged parcels, which take longer, need more than one system and often generate a second contact.
2. When do holiday returns peak?
Immediately after Christmas. Adobe’s data for the 2025 season showed that one in every seven returns of the whole season happened between December 26 and December 31, and the tail of refund and exchange contacts continues well into January.
3. How long should seasonal support staff be kept after the holidays?
Long enough to cover the returns and refund tail, not only the shipping peak. Releasing seasonal agents on December 26 removes capacity at the moment the more complex contacts begin. Many operations keep a trained core through January and release in stages.
4. What reduces refund-status contacts after the holidays?
Telling customers before they ask. A confirmation when the return is scanned, another when it is received, and a specific refund date remove most of the reason to call. The contacts that remain are the exceptions that genuinely need an agent.
