The Seasonal Support Hire's Day-One Cheat Sheet: What Temps Can Answer, Refund, and Must Escalate in Peak Season

A temp on day one cannot learn your whole shipping and returns policy. They can learn ten rules. The brands that handle peak well give seasonal staff a single page that says what to answer, what they can refund, and when to hand off.

Retailers are planning for this. In the 2025 NRF and Happy Returns returns report, 43% of surveyed retailers planned to hire seasonal staff to handle returns and 37% planned to extend return windows. We could not find the 2026 edition, so treat those as last year's planning figures. The pattern is the point: more volume and more new people at the same moment.

The one-page structure

Keep it to four blocks. If it needs a second page, cut something.

Block 1: The five questions you will get all day

Write each question with a one-line decision rule, not a paragraph of policy.

• Where is my order? Check tracking. If there has been a scan in the last 3 days, share status and the expected date. If not, tag it "stalled" and escalate per Block 3.
• It says delivered but I do not have it. Ask them to check around the property, with neighbors, and with the household. If still missing after 24 hours, start the resolution process.
• I want to change my address. Check the order state. If unfulfilled, edit it. If shipped, escalate.
• How do I return this? Send the returns portal link and the return window end date for their order.
• When will my refund arrive? Give the refund timeline from your policy, counting from receipt of the return.

Block 2: Authority limits

Temps should never have to guess what they are allowed to do. Fill in your own numbers in a small table:

• Refund or replace up to $[X] without approval
• Shipping fee refund up to $[Y]
• Store credit bonus up to [Z]%
• Anything above these: escalate

Pick the limits from your margins. The right numbers are the ones you can afford to be wrong about a few times a day.

Block 3: Escalation triggers

List the situations that always go to a senior person: a customer mentions a chargeback or a lawyer, a high-value order, three contacts about one order, a stalled package past day 7, a possible fraud pattern, and anything involving a safety issue with a product.

Say how to escalate: which channel, what to include, and how fast the senior person will respond.

Block 4: What not to say

Ban the phrases that cause trouble. Examples: promising a delivery date the carrier has not committed to, blaming the customer, and saying "that is not our problem" about carrier delays. Replace each with a line they can use instead.

Add a macro pack and a log

Give each temp six saved replies for the most common situations, so they edit rather than write. Ask them to log every escalation in one place with the order number and the reason. The log is how you learn what to fix before next peak.

Review at the end of week one

Look at reopened tickets, escalations that did not need escalating, and refunds that exceeded the limit. Each one points at a line on the sheet that is unclear. Fix the sheet, not the person.

Make the hard cases easier

Much of a temp's stress comes from not being able to offer a clear resolution when a package is lost or damaged. A resolution process that lives in your own branded portal gives them a standard answer and gives the customer a path they can follow without waiting.

ShipAid's post-purchase platform combines a Shipping Guarantee, Smart Returns, Shipping Rates and Fulfillment, so your support team has one consistent set of answers after checkout. See how it works at shipaid.com.