Peak Blueprint · One week
Peak starts November 27th. You need the number before you can hire.
Peak Blueprint is a one week capacity plan for your peak season, holiday or otherwise: how many contacts are coming, how many people you need, and when they have to start. You get a plan deck, a one page recommendation with costs, and the live model to keep.
What the Peak Plan Found
One week of work. Nine seasonal hires became four.
The season ahead
49,875 contacts forecast, peaking at 5,928 in a single week. Growth of 14%, measured like for like after correcting for channels that had moved into the help desk.
Short for two seasons running
The season needed 16.4 people a week. They had 12.3. Last season 4,250 callers hung up and 2,046 chats were never picked up.
What the AI agent could take
24% of the season closes end to end without a person. Their AI agent was resolving 17% of what it touched, and 46% of people gave up on it and left.
Nine seasonal hires became four
Fixing AI agent deflection moved 9 to 6. Fixing the shift plan moved 6 to 4. $62,955 saved, with offers signed by October 12th.
This is what one week of Peak Blueprint produces.
From a real 2026-27 peak plan. Client name removed.
One week
From access to finished plan
From $4,500
Priced on team, queues and channels
10 weeks
November 27th to January 31st
Working backwards from Black Friday
The plan takes a week. The hiring takes seven.
This is not a scarcity pitch. It's arithmetic. A seasonal support role takes three to four weeks to fill and a new hire needs two to three weeks before they can work a queue unsupervised.
Now
Peak Blueprint
One week from the day your access lands. You get the season headcount number, the hiring plan and the costs.
By early October
Post the roles
Seasonal support roles take three to four weeks to fill properly. Posting later means interviewing while volume is already climbing.
Early November
Start and ramp
A new support hire needs two to three weeks before they are answering unsupervised. Start them the first week of November and they are useful on day one of peak.
November 27th
Peak begins
Black Friday. From here to January 31st is 10 weeks of elevated volume, and whatever you did not fix by now you are living with.
Starting later still works, it just changes what the plan is for. Past early October, hiring stops being the lever and the plan becomes about what your existing team and your AI agent can absorb, and where the queue breaks first.
Your peak, not just the holidays
Same plan, different dates.
Tax season. Back to school. Enrollment. A product launch. Renewal cycles. The work is identical: forecast the window from your own history, size the team against it, and work backwards to a post-by date. This page is dated to the holidays because that is what most teams are staffing right now. Tell us when yours starts and every date in the plan moves with it.
What you get
Three things, one week.
The plan deck
Your forecast season volume, the capacity you have, the gap between them, and what to do about it. Written to be forwarded to whoever controls the budget.
Recommendation and costs, one page
What to hire, what it costs, what happens if you do not. One page, because the person approving it will not read twelve.
The live model
A Google Sheet or Excel file you keep and edit. Change the volume assumption, change the handle time, change the shrinkage, and watch the headcount number move. It is yours after we leave.
What the plan answers
Six questions, with numbers attached.
How many contacts your season will actually bring, based on your own history rather than a category benchmark
One headcount number for the whole season, not a weekly schedule you will not follow
How many people to hire, what type, the date to post by and the date they need to start
What your current AI agent is deflecting, and whether leaning on it harder is realistic or wishful
Where the plan breaks if volume lands 20% over forecast, so you know your ceiling before you hit it
What all of it costs, in a form you can put in front of a CFO
What it costs
From $4,500.
Fixed price, quoted after scoping, and the whole thing is done in a week. Three things move the number:
Agent count matters here in a way it does not for our other work, because peak is a capacity problem first. A bigger team is more schedules, more shrinkage to model and more people to ramp.
If you want help executing it
Plenty of teams take the plan and run it themselves. That's a good outcome and the model is built to be handed over.
If you'd rather we did the work, we scope that from what the plan actually finds. We don't publish a price for it, because the job depends entirely on the gap. Restructuring a queue before Black Friday and tuning an AI agent are different amounts of work, and quoting either before we've seen your numbers would be guessing.
When this is the wrong thing to buy
Three times we'd point you somewhere else.
You want the schedule, not the number. An intraday roster, shift patterns and adherence tracking is real work and we do it, it just is not this. That is Workforce Management under Operate, whether you have hired yet or not. Peak Blueprint gives you a season headcount number and a hiring plan.
Your volume is flat and there is no peak to size. Nothing to forecast a window against. The Support Operations Audit is the better starting point.
You want the whole operation looked at, not one season. Peak Blueprint answers one question in a week. The Support Operations Audit covers five areas over two weeks and is built to lead into a rebuild.
WHO'S ACTUALLY DOING THIS
I'm Ty Givens. 25 years running support operations at See's Candies, Thrive Causemetics and Intuit before starting CX Collective. I have staffed a lot of peak seasons, holiday and otherwise, including the ones where the forecast was wrong. I lead every engagement, and my team does the hands-on work.
25 years in support operations
Start here
Tell us what you're staffing.
A few questions, about two minutes. Your range comes back within one business day, and the access checklist goes out the day you sign so the week doesn't stall on a login.
13 consecutive 5 star Clutch reviews. Read the case studies →
Questions we get
Before the season starts.
How much does peak season support planning cost?
Peak Blueprint starts at $4,500. What moves it is how many people answer tickets today, how many queues you run, and how many channels are in scope. Answer the questions on this page and your range comes back within one business day, along with what we'd need to confirm to firm it up. That last part is usually a short conversation, and with a dated product it is worth having early.
How fast can you turn this around?
One week from the day your access lands, not from the day you sign. We send the access checklist immediately, and the clock starts when we can see your volume history and your help desk.
Is this the same as your Support Operations Audit?
No. The audit is two weeks across five areas of your operation and is built to lead into a rebuild. Peak Blueprint answers one question, how to staff and survive this season, and it answers it in a week because the season does not wait. Different scope, different timeline, its own price.
What's the difference between Peak Blueprint and a Headcount Business Case?
One is about a window. The other is about a team.
Peak Blueprint sizes a season. There is a start date, an end date, and a question of whether you get through it. It gives you a season headcount number split into permanent and seasonal, what your AI agent can absorb, the dates you have to post and start by, and what the whole thing costs. It ends when the season ends.
A Headcount Business Case sizes a team. No window, no seasonal hires. It answers what this team should be all year at the service level you are holding it to, what being short is already costing you, and what the return looks like on filling the gap. It is built to be defended in a budget conversation, because that is usually where it goes.
Which one you need: if you are staffing toward a date, take the Peak Blueprint. If you are going into a planning cycle and need someone to approve roles, take the Headcount Business Case.
They overlap. Both produce a staffing number and a live model you keep. A Peak Blueprint often turns up a permanent gap sitting underneath the seasonal one, and when it does we say so.
What if we need help executing the plan, not just the plan?
We do that too, and it is scoped from what the plan finds. We do not pre-price it, because the work depends entirely on the gap the plan uncovers. Some teams need hiring support, some need the AI agent tuned, some need the whole queue restructured before Black Friday.
We already have an AI agent. Does that change the number?
It should, and the plan says by how much. Part of the work is checking what your AI agent is actually deflecting today rather than what the vendor claims, then deciding whether leaning on it harder through peak is realistic or wishful. Overestimating deflection is one of the more expensive ways to get a season wrong.
Is it too late to start?
That depends on what you need. The plan itself still takes a week whenever you start. What has a deadline is hiring: seasonal roles take three to four weeks to fill and a new hire needs two to three weeks to ramp, so posting much past early October means people arrive mid-season. If hiring is off the table, the plan is still worth having, because it tells you where the queue will break and what to do with the team you already have. If your peak is not the holidays, the dates above are not yours. Work backwards from your own start date and the same arithmetic applies: three to four weeks to fill a seasonal role, two to three weeks to ramp.
The season is 10 weeks long. The plan takes one.
From November 27th to January 31st, whatever you did not fix beforehand you are living with.
Get your peak plan scoped