Retailers often pour significant resources into campaigns during peak sales periods, such as holiday promotions, flash deals, and new product launches, to attract a surge in traffic. In Singapore, for instance, retail sales spiked by 8.4% year‑on‑year in February 2024, fuelled by Lunar New Year festivities, with particularly strong demand in F&B, supermarkets and apparel sectors. Visitor arrivals also climbed to 2.87 million in the first two months of 2024, 92 per cent of pre‑pandemic levels, driving further footfall and online enquiries. But that surge typically brings a sharp rise in customer questions: overwhelmed support teams struggle to keep pace, and even a few minutes’ delay on channels like WhatsApp or web chat can send shoppers elsewhere.
Hiring temporary agents to cope is costly, slow to organise and hard to scale for short‑lived spikes, whether during festive sales or major events like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Instead, forward‑looking retailers are turning to scalable, AI‑driven support platforms that automatically handle high volumes of enquiries in real time, ensuring every customer gets a prompt, consistent response without the need to recruit more staff.
Instead of overloading your existing team or losing sales due to slow replies, retailers are turning to VLM Lite, a sovereign, no-code AI agent that responds instantly, accurately, and across every major channel.
Support Bottlenecks During Campaigns
Let’s look at a typical scenario:
You’re running a Hari Raya Mega Sale. The campaign launches at midnight and within the first 4 hours, your team receives:
- 380+ queries on WhatsApp
- 120 voice calls asking about promo eligibility
- Dozens of Instagram DMs about delivery timelines
- Chatbot breakdowns due to traffic surges
Your lean support team, trained for daily volumes, is now scrambling. Many questions go unanswered for hours. Your cart abandonment rate hits 50% by noon. Campaign ROI? Compromised.
This is not a people problem, it’s a scalability problem.
The VLM Lite Advantage: Scalable, Custom-Trained Retail Support
VLM Lite solves this with a retail-specific, conversational AI agent that can be deployed in under a week and trained entirely on your internal resources:
Trained on your product catalogue, promotion mechanics, SOPs and FAQs
Multilingual, omnichannel deployment across WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Email, Line, Voice, and Web
Responds in under 3 seconds, 24/7—including nights and weekends
Continuously updates as your team adds new promos or workflows
Unlike rule-based bots that rely on predefined flows, VLM Lite understands context. It doesn’t just reply; it converses—making customers feel heard, informed, and ready to buy.
Real Use Case: Fashion Retailer Handles 5x Traffic Without Hiring
A Singapore-based fashion brand integrated VLM Lite ahead of their 11.11 campaign. Here’s what happened:
Incoming queries during the campaign surged to 1,800+ per day
No new hires were added to their 4-person support team
VLM Lite answered 88% of all enquiries automatically, including:
- Promo stacking rules
- Refund policies for discounted items
- Sizing and fit suggestions
- Delivery lead times during campaign periods
Outcomes:
- 31% reduction in cart abandonment
- 47% fewer human support escalations
- Sales conversion rate improved by 24%
- Team reported “zero burnout” and higher focus on VIP enquiries
How VLM Lite Adds Strategic Value
The benefits of VLM Lite go beyond just automation:
Shorter response times = higher conversion
Every second matters during checkout. With VLM Lite, customers receive answers in real time, reducing hesitation and accelerating the path to purchase.
Cost-effective scale without headcount increase
Retailers typically hire 2–3 temp agents per campaign. VLM Lite replaces that with a one-time deployment that scales infinitely at a fraction of the cost.
Campaign knowledge embedded in the AI
Traditional bots fail when asked campaign-specific questions. VLM Lite is updated directly from your internal promo decks, product pages, and T&Cs—keeping it accurate at all times.
Omnichannel synchronisation
Customer asks about your promo on Facebook, then emails an hour later. VLM Lite maintains the thread—no duplicate answers, no frustration.
Full observability & control
All AI interactions are tracked. You get detailed dashboards showing resolution rate, response time, and escalations. Want to change the tone or update a policy? It’s editable in minutes—no dev team needed.
Why It’s More Urgent Than Ever
Peak shopping periods are only getting more intense. With platforms like Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop setting new standards for customer response times, expectations are high—even on your owned channels.
If you’re still relying solely on human agents to handle this surge, you’re not just falling behind—you’re losing revenue.
Let your next sales campaign scale without chaos.
Book a personalised demo with VoiceraCX and discover how VLM Lite can power your customer support—during promos and beyond.
