How to Respond to Customer Text Replies During BFCM

This guide covers how to respond to customer text replies during Black Friday and Cyber Monday: when the replies arrive, how a good reply is built, what to say to the replies you will get most, when to hand a conversation to someone else, and the consent rules that apply to replies. Black Friday falls on November 27, 2026, and Cyber Monday on November 30. For shift rotas and staffing, see the holiday customer service guide. This one is about the replies themselves.

What do you need before you start?

Replies arrive soon after your sends, and the biggest sends go out on the biggest spending days. Adobe counted $6.4 billion in US online spending on Thanksgiving 2025, $11.8 billion on Black Friday, $11.8 billion across the Saturday and Sunday combined, and $14.25 billion on Cyber Monday¹. Expect your heaviest reply load on Friday and Monday, in the hour or two after each send.

• The send list, with times. Every text you plan to send that week, the hour it goes out and who receives it. Whoever answers replies should know when the next wave is coming.
• An answer sheet. How codes combine, ship-by dates for holiday delivery, the gift return window, size notes on your best sellers and stock on anything likely to sell out. One page, the same version for everyone.
• The shopper's context beside the thread. Their cart or last order, and the text they are replying to. A reply written without it starts with "Can you send your order number?"
• A handoff route. Where late orders, refunds and complaints go, who picks them up and how fast.
• Opt-outs that work everywhere. A stop in any thread should remove the number from every marketing flow.

How do you respond to customer text replies, step by step?

1. Read the thread and the cart before you type. Check which text the shopper is answering, what they were looking at and whether a teammate already replied. Two people giving different answers in one thread confuses the shopper and slows the order.
2. Answer the question in the first line. The answer first, then the detail, then one link if it helps. Sign with a first name so the shopper knows a person is there. Two or three short sentences fit on a phone screen without scrolling.
3. End with one easy next step. "Want the link in a large?" moves a shopper closer to an order than "Let us know if you have any other questions."
4. Use the answer sheet for the common reply types. Sizing, shipping, codes, trust and stop requests come up again and again, so answer them the same way every time (examples below). Write everything else yourself.
5. Hand off with the context attached. When a reply needs someone else, tell the shopper who will follow up and by when, and pass on a short summary so they never have to repeat themselves.
6. Treat any request to stop as a stop. Confirm once, without an offer, and remove the number from every marketing flow.
7. Tag the thread and close it. Record the reply type and the outcome: answered, ordered, handed off or opted out.

What should you say to the most common replies?

Baymard Institute asked US shoppers why they left a checkout. Leaving aside people who were only browsing, 40% named extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees, 20% said delivery was too slow, 19% did not trust the site with their card details, 13% found the returns policy unsatisfactory and 12% could not see the total cost up front². During a sale, the same doubts come back as text replies.

Every exchange below is a composite example written for this guide, not a real conversation. Replace the bracketed parts with your own products and policies.

Sizing and fit

Shopper: "Does the [jacket] run small? I'm usually a medium." Reply: "Hi, it's [Name] at [Store]. It runs about half a size small, so most people who wear a medium take a large. Want the link in a large?" Answer for the product they named, from your size notes or return reasons, not with a link to the size chart they already saw. If you are not sure, say so and explain the exchange policy.

Shipping and arrival dates

Shopper: "If I order today will it get here by the 20th?" Reply: "Yes, with standard shipping if you order by [date]. Express gets it there by [date]. Want me to send the link?" Give a date rather than a range of business days, and say which shipping option it depends on. Never promise a date the carrier cannot keep.

Discount stacking and the total

Shopper: "Can I use my welcome code on top of the sale?" Reply: "The welcome code doesn't combine with sale prices, but the sale price is the better deal on that [item]: [price] instead of [price]. Want the link?" Say yes or no in the first words, then the best price they can actually get. If shipping or tax will change the total, say so now, so the number at checkout is not a surprise.

"Is this a real person?"

Shopper: "Who is this? How did you get my number?" Reply: "I'm [Name] on the [Store] team. You signed up for texts when you ordered in [month]. Happy to help with anything, or reply STOP and we won't text again." Answer honestly, say where the consent came from, and give them the way out.

Order problems that need a handoff

Shopper: "My order from last week still hasn't shipped." Reply: "Sorry about that. I've passed order [number] to [Name] on our orders team, who will text you the tracking by [time] today." Then make sure that person has the thread, the order and what was promised. The next day, check that the promised text went out.

Stop, unsubscribe and the words around them

Federal rules treat a reply of "stop," "quit," "end," "revoke," "opt out," "cancel" or "unsubscribe" as a valid way to revoke consent, and a reply in other words counts too if a reasonable person would read it that way³. "Please stop texting me" and "take me off this list" both count. One confirmation text with no marketing in it is presumed fine if it goes out within five minutes, and the request must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days³. Do not answer a stop with an offer to stay.

The same rules bar telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time at the called party's location³. A shopper who asks a question at 10 p.m. can get the answer, but hold any sales nudge until morning. Check with your adviser how your state treats replies, and see the holiday SMS compliance checklist for state rules.

How do you check that it works?

• Text your own store. From a personal phone, reply to a test send with a size question, a code question and "please stop texting me." Time each answer and check that the third one removed you from every flow.
• Read threads every evening. Pick twenty at random. Look for answers that did not answer, links to the wrong size and handoffs with no follow-up.
• Count by reply type. For sizing, shipping, codes, trust and stop, track how many came in, the time to first reply in the busiest hour and how many ended in an order.
• Fix the source. If one question keeps coming back, add the answer to the product page or the next send.

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Inviting replies nobody reads. Only ask a question in a send when someone is on shift to read the answers.
• Answering with a link. A shopper who asked whether the jacket runs small wants an answer about that jacket.
• Asking for what you already have. If the thread is tied to an order, look it up rather than asking for the number.
• Pasting the same answer to different questions. The answer sheet gives the facts. The reply should still answer the question that was asked.
• Trying to save an opt-out. A stop gets one plain confirmation, not a code to stay.
• Handing off in silence. Always tell the shopper who has their question and when they will hear back.

Answering every reply quickly, in your store's voice, from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday is a lot for a small team. VYG Conversations is the human in the loop for that week: trained agents work from your products, policies and voice, read each reply and answer by text, and every conversation is written back to the customer profile. For the sends themselves, see the BFCM SMS calendar, the BFCM conversation playbook and the Cyber Monday text examples.

To watch a real person answer a shopper's BFCM reply, see Conversations in action.