Peak Season Customer Service (11.11, 12.12, Black Friday): How to Prepare
Peak season customer service means handling far more messages than usual around big sale days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (27 and 30 November 2026), 12.12 (12 December 2026) and 11.11 (11 November 2027), without slow replies or wrong answers. Prepare in three stages: before the sale, write down your sale rules and set up answers from your store data. During the sale, answer stock, promo and delivery questions in seconds. After the sale, get ahead of “where is my order?” with proactive updates.
What buyers ask during a big sale
The questions change with the stage of the sale.
- Before: When does the sale start? Which items are included? Will this be on sale? Can I stack vouchers?
- During: Is this still in stock? Why isn’t my code working? Is free shipping included? Which size should I get? Can I change my order?
- After: Where is my order? Why hasn’t it shipped? Can I return a sale item? I was charged twice, what happened?
Most of these have clear answers in your store, your promo rules or your policies. The danger is volume. When every question comes at once, replies slow down, buyers abandon carts, and the “where is my order?” wave after the sale buries your team for days. See how to reduce WISMO tickets.
Countdown checklist
Three to four weeks before
- Write your sale rules in one place. Start and end times with time zone, which products are included, discount and voucher rules, free shipping threshold, whether codes stack, return policy for sale items. Every answer will come from this.
- Prepare your WhatsApp templates. Order confirmation, shipping update, delay apology, and any sale announcement. Meta’s template review can take up to 24 hours, and a rejected template needs time to fix and resubmit. See template approval.
- Check your WhatsApp messaging limit. Meta limits how many unique customers a business can message first in a rolling 24 hours: 250 for a new business portfolio, 2,000 after verification, then higher tiers as quality and use grow. If you plan a sale broadcast, make sure your limit covers it. See messaging limits.
- Check your Meta payment method. Since 1 October 2026, each WhatsApp business number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, and after that service replies are charged. Without a payment method on file, chargeable service messages are not delivered. A busy sale can pass 1,000 replies quickly. See WhatsApp pricing.
One week before
- Load sale details into your chat setup and test the top 20 questions.
- Decide what goes to a person during the sale: payment problems, damaged items, angry customers, bulk orders.
- Set your delivery promise for sale orders. Couriers slow down in peak season, so give a delivery window you can keep.
- Send the sale announcement to customers who opted in, with an approved marketing template. See festive sale announcement templates.
Sale day
- Answer stock and promo questions from live store data, never from a document written last week.
- Watch the handover queue and the questions that keep coming. Add answers as you go.
- When something sells out, offer the closest alternative or a back-in-stock message. See back in stock templates.
The two weeks after
- Send shipping updates with tracking as orders leave.
- If a batch is delayed, tell those customers before they ask. See delivery delay apology templates.
- Handle returns and exchanges for sale items by your stated policy.
Marketplace sales
11.11 and 12.12 are major sale days on Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop. Marketplace buyers message the shop inside the app and expect a reply while they decide, and each marketplace measures how quickly sellers reply. Check the current chat rules in each seller center before the sale. Orders, vouchers and shipping stay in the marketplace. See preparing customer service for 11.11, preparing for 12.12 and Black Friday customer service for online stores.
How AeroChat handles the rush
AeroChat answers every message as it arrives, on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok Shop buyer chat, Shopee, Lazada, web chat and email. It checks stock and prices in your store, explains your sale rules in your wording, applies discount codes where your rules allow it, and sends payment links when buyers order in chat. After the sale, it answers order and tracking questions and sends your approved shipping updates. Your team gets only the cases you said need a person, with the conversation attached. It doesn’t get slower when volume goes up.
Customer, on WhatsApp on Black Friday: my code BF25 isn’t working on the hoodie?? (example)
AeroChat: Sorry about that. BF25 gives 25% off everything except new arrivals, and the Cloud hoodie is a new arrival this month (example). It’s 15% off with the sale price already applied, so you’ll see the lower price at checkout without a code. Would you like the link?
Behind the reply: AeroChat read the product’s tag in the store and the code’s rules from the sale details the seller wrote.
Copy this into AeroChat
During our Black Friday sale, from 27 November 00:00 to 30 November 23:59 (example), answer questions about the sale from our sale rules page. Check stock in our store before saying an item is available. If a customer says a code isn’t working, check which products the code covers and explain why, and offer the link to an item it does cover. If an item is sold out, say so and suggest the closest item that is in stock. Tell customers that sale orders ship within 3 working days (example) and never promise a delivery date. If a customer says they were charged twice or a payment failed, hand the conversation to our team with the order number.
To run it, connect your store (Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix are built in) and your channels. For payment links in chat, Airwallex is built in.
Questions
How early should I prepare?
Three to four weeks before is a good start. Templates need approval, messaging limits may need to grow, and sale rules need writing down before anyone can answer from them.
Should I hire temporary staff for peak season?
Many sellers do. Automating the routine questions means any extra people spend their time on the cases that need a person, not on “is this in stock?”.
Can I send a broadcast to all my customers?
Only to customers who opted in to WhatsApp messages, with an approved marketing template, within your messaging limit. See promo broadcasts.
Does this work for other sales, like payday or festive sales?
Yes. The same preparation works for any sale. See payday sale customer service.
Get your chat ready before the next sale
Start your 7-day free trial. No credit card needed. Connect your store and channels, paste your sale rules and the recipe above, and test the questions you expect on sale day.
On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.