Key takeaways on Revolution Beauty’s Black Friday findings
- Revolution Beauty said it handled 25% of Black Friday queries via AI chatbots without agent handover.
- Customer support queries dropped by nearly 60% compared to 2024.
- WhatsApp resolved 29% of queries, up from 4% last year.
- AI and channel diversity eliminated the usual post-Black Friday backlog.
- Experts say AI-assisted customer care is the future of retail support.
UK-based cosmetics brand Revolution Beauty has shared new insights from its Black Friday sales, revealing how the customer service landscape is evolving.
With online sales across the Black Friday weekend reportedly hitting $5bn in the UK this year, the brand, with its partner, AI-powered engagement platform CM.com, has shared data showing that it experienced a record-breaking number of customer enquiries handled by artificial intelligence during the weekend.
Revolution Beauty said that a quarter of customer queries were managed by AI chatbots over the Black Friday weekend without requiring an agent handover.
The brand also highlighted that, compared to Black Friday 2024, queries reaching the customer support team were almost 60% lower. In this environment, AI chatbots, WhatsApp, and improved self-service played a key role in resolving routine questions earlier, allowing agents to prioritise complex cases.
The company further noted that it did not experience the usual Black Friday close-of-business backlog of unresolved queries by the end of the weekend. This fell by 95% compared to the previous year.
WhatsApp: a key customer service channel for beauty brands
Both businesses emphasised “the power of channel diversity”, noting that 29% of all customer queries were resolved by agents on WhatsApp – a significant increase from 4% during the 2024 Black Friday period.
Steve Griffiths, Head of Digital Development at Revolution Beauty, said the brand had seen a record-breaking weekend. “We’ve seen huge demand for our Beauty Advent Calendar and Miracle Cream, which has led to a rise in queries around products and deliveries as people try to make the most of deals before they disappear,” he explained.
“We’ve always prioritised customer service and having AI-assisted chatbots working in sync with our team of service agents meant every customer got the help they needed, fast.”
Griffiths stressed that consumer behaviour is changing. “As a brand it’s crucial we keep pace – meeting them on the channels they prefer, whether that’s WhatsApp or elsewhere,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hodny Benazzi, General Manager at CM.com, said Revolution Beauty’s success demonstrates the importance of meeting customers where they are – whether that’s on WhatsApp, online, or other social channels.
“By blending intelligent AI-powered chatbots with live support, they delivered fast, personalised service at scale on the channels shoppers prefer when it mattered most,” he said. “This kind of AI-assisted customer care isn’t just a nice to have – it’s the future of retail support.”
Revolution Beauty said these findings will now shape how the brand approaches the rest of the peak shopping season.
