Christmas and New Year customer service on WhatsApp: a December playbook

December is not one peak but three. The campaign rush ends with Cyber Monday; then come the questions about whether an order arrives before Christmas; then, after the holidays, the exchanges and returns. Each one lands on WhatsApp, because that is where customers already wrote to you in November.

This playbook covers what customers ask in each phase, the replies and templates to prepare, how to handle the days you are closed, what the October 2026 change to Meta’s pricing means for a busy support month, and how to set it up in MonoChat.

Why December is a support month, not only a sales month

Adobe forecasts $275.1 billion in US online spending between 1 November and 31 December 2026, up 6.7% on 2025. Cyber Week alone is expected to bring $47.5 billion, about 17.3% of the season, which means most of the season’s orders are placed outside it. Adobe also expects discounts of 10–15% to continue throughout December, so orders keep arriving until the last shipping day.

Two other figures from the same forecast explain why those questions come in by chat: 57.4% of holiday spending is expected on mobile devices, and Buy Now Pay Later is forecast to drive $21.3 billion, 82% of it on mobile. A shopper who paid on a phone asks on the phone. Every order is a possible “where is it?”, and every gift a possible exchange in January.

The three phases of December

Phase	Typical dates	What customers ask	What to prepare
After Cyber Week	1 to about 10 December	Order status, delayed parcels, changing an address	Order updates as utility templates, an order lookup
Last shipping days	The week before your Christmas cut-off	”Will it arrive before the 24th?”, gift wrap, gift notes, click and collect	Cut-off dates per country and shipping method, written down once
Holidays and January	24 December to mid-January	Opening hours, exchanges, returns, gift cards	Holiday hours reply, return steps, a person on call

The exact dates depend on your couriers and markets. Write them in one place (a shared note or your AI agent’s knowledge base) before December, so agents, automations and the AI agent all give the same answer.

Replies to prepare now

Write these as saved replies for your team and as knowledge for your AI agent. Customers write in their own words, so the content matters more than the wording.

Will it arrive before Christmas?

Customer: Hi, if I order the blue scarf today, will it arrive in Leeds before the 24th?

Business: Hi Emma! For UK standard delivery the last order date for Christmas is 18 December, so an order today arrives in time. If you want it sooner, express delivery is available until 21 December.

A gift for someone else

Customer: Can you send it straight to my sister and leave the price off?

Business: Of course. Add her address at checkout and tick “This is a gift”: the parcel goes without a receipt, and you can add a short note for her.

After the cut-off

Customer: Is it too late for delivery by Christmas?

Business: For home delivery, yes, I’m sorry. You can still pick it up at our Manchester store until 4 p.m. on 24 December, or send a digital gift card today.

Only offer options you really have. A wrong answer about a delivery date costs more in December than at any other time of year.

Templates for messages you start

When the customer has not written in the last 24 hours, you can only reach them with a template Meta has approved. Submit December’s templates in November, so they are approved before you need them.

• Utility: order shipped, order delayed, ready for pickup, return received, refund issued. These are tied to something the customer did.
• Marketing: a last-order-date reminder, a gift card offer, a January sale. These count against your marketing limits and need the customer’s opt-in.

A delay is the message most worth sending before the customer asks:

Hi {{1}}, your order {{2}} has been delayed by the courier and is now expected on {{3}}. We’re sorry. Reply here if you’d like to change the delivery or cancel.

A customer who replies opens the 24-hour window, and the conversation continues in your team inbox.

Holiday hours without losing conversations

Most teams close or run a skeleton crew on some days between 24 December and 1 January. On WhatsApp, the risk is not only a slower reply: the 24-hour customer service window keeps running while you are closed. If nobody answers within 24 hours of the customer’s last message, a free-form reply is no longer possible, and you need an approved template to reach them again.

A good holiday hours reply says four things:

Thanks for your message! We’re closed on 25 and 26 December and back on 27 December at 9:00. Until then you can track your order here: {{link}}, or tell me what you need and our assistant will help. For a damaged or missing parcel, write “urgent” and someone from the team will reply today.

Then:

• let an AI agent answer what it can while the window is open, from your knowledge base and order lookup;
• collect the order number and the request, so the first person back starts with the facts;
• route words like “urgent”, “damaged” or “missing” to whoever is on call.

Our guide to WhatsApp messages after hours covers nights and weekends in more detail.

What a busy December costs since October 2026

Budgets set early in 2026 may be out of date. On Meta’s pricing page:

• Meta has charged per message since 1 July 2025.
• Service messages, the free-form replies within 24 hours of a customer’s message, were free from 1 November 2024. Since 1 October 2026 Meta charges for them again, and each business phone number gets its first 1,000 service messages a month free.
• Utility templates sent in reply to a customer, free since July 2025, are charged again since 1 October 2026.

For a support peak this matters: a store answering several thousand questions in December now pays for the replies above the free 1,000 per number, at the rate for each customer’s country. Meta bills your business directly; MonoChat adds no markup. Our WhatsApp Business API pricing guide explains the categories and how to estimate them.

Two ways to keep the cost and the workload down: answer each question completely in one reply, and send a utility update before the customer has to ask.

Set it up in MonoChat

MonoChat is an official Meta Business Partner. Everything below works on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and the other channels in the same team inbox.

1. Write the facts down once. Put your shipping cut-offs, holiday hours, gift and returns policies into the knowledge base your AI Agent uses. Update one place when a courier changes a date.

2. Set your hours and the holidays. In Settings › Team › Working Hours, check the hours of every day and your timezone. Working hours repeat every week, so for 25 December or 1 January either switch that day off for the week or add a Date Time condition in your inbound flow that sends those dates to the holiday branch.

3. Branch the inbound flow. After the New Message Received event, an If node with the Within Working Hours condition splits the flow. In hours, Assign Session puts the chat in the right queue (a workgroup for orders, another for returns). Outside hours, a Send Message node sends your holiday reply, and an AI Agent node takes over. The AI Agent node ends on its own outputs (Completed, Budget Exceeded, Timed Out, On Fail), so the flow can still assign the chat to a person afterwards.

4. Collect before you hand over. Where the AI agent should not decide, such as a refund for a damaged item, use Question Answer nodes to ask for the order number and a photo, then assign the chat. The person who picks it up starts with everything they need.

5. Answer “where is my order?” automatically. If your store is on Shopify or your own platform, the Shop Assistant app tracks orders, handles return requests and recovers abandoned carts in the chat. For another platform, an order status flow with an HTTP Request node can look the order up; see our order status bot guide.

6. Send updates with templates. Use Send Template Message in flows, or bulk messages for one-off notices such as a courier delay that affects many orders. Keep marketing reminders for customers who opted in.

7. Check the backlog every morning. On the first day back, open the Opened tab of the inbox, where open and unassigned conversations wait, and use the filter’s Last Message Date to show the days you were closed. Reply first to the chats whose window is still open; for the others, send an approved template.

A December checklist

• Cut-off dates per country and shipping method, written in one place
• Holiday hours set, including the dates that differ from a normal week
• Holiday reply written, sent once per conversation
• AI agent’s knowledge base updated with shipping, gifts and returns
• Utility templates for shipped, delayed, pickup and refund approved
• Someone on call for urgent messages on closed days
• December service-message volume estimated against the free 1,000 per number
• A plan for the January returns peak

To start, create a free account at app.monochat.ai, connect your WhatsApp number and compare plans on the pricing page. For campaign timing before December, see our Black Friday WhatsApp playbook.

Sources

• Adobe, “U.S. Holiday Shopping Season to Hit Record $275.1 Billion Online, Rising 6.7% YoY” (28 Sep 2026), opened 4 Nov 2026
• Meta for Developers, Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform, opened 4 Nov 2026
• MonoChat changelog 3.8.37 (Within Working Hours condition)
• Shop Assistant app, MonoChat asset store