Overview

This policy applies to all sellers who offer products for sale on TikTok Shop and communicate with customers through TikTok's TikTok Shop Chat.
Important: This policy applies to all sellers selling in the US.
This policy is not exhaustive, nor intended as legal advice. Sellers must seek independent legal advice if they have questions about the laws and regulations concerning their products.
This policy is updated periodically. Sellers must check this page regularly to ensure compliance with our current policy.

General Customer Service Requirements

Sellers must provide professional and timely customer service. Sellers are not allowed to engage in abusive or threatening behavior toward the customer or TikTok Shop staff. Customer service includes but is not limited to pre-sales services such as:

• Product-related consultation or general inquiry
• Shipping and handling
• After-sales support
• Customer complaints

Customer Service Policy

If customers request support or raise tickets through the Order Detail page, they will be directed to either our Help Center, TikTok Shop agents for platform support, or to seller customer service agents through TikTok Shop Chat.
During periods when customer service agents are offline, customers will be guided to raise a ticket that will be handled by automation or human agents when they are next back online.

Customer Service

• Sellers should use TikTok Shop Chat to provide customer service where possible. Sellers must ensure that they can be contacted through TikTok Shop Chat when selling on our platform.
• When using TikTok Shop Chat to provide customer service, sellers must:
  • Manage their customer service team or personnel at all times.
  • Manage their customer service team's account access and permissions appropriately.
  • Manage all activities and communications sent using their account.
• Sellers must set their shop's operation hours in the Seller Center. Operation hours will then be displayed to customers who message them through TikTok Shop Chat.

TikTok Shop Chat

Sellers must use appropriate language and act professionally when communicating with customers through TikTok Shop Chat. If a seller experiences any prohibited behavior from a customer, they can raise a ticket in Seller Center. When raising a ticket, sellers should submit relevant supporting materials such as historical communications with the customer. TikTok Shop will investigate any reported communications and make a decision regarding the seller's performance evaluation.The behaviors listed below are strictly prohibited and TikTok Shop reserves the right to take action, including but not limited to deduction of points from a seller's Account Health Rating.

Minor Exploitation & Abuse

• Sellers are prohibited from communicating or sending any messages to customers that contain or allude to Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM), grooming, sextortion, sexual solicitation, pedophilia, and physical or psychological abuse of minors. Sellers must not promote or redistribute any content that contains or alludes to CSAM, sextortion, grooming, or similar. Sellers must also adhere to the TikTok Community Guidelines.

Harassment, Bullying and Hateful Behaviour

• TikTok Shop strictly prohibits any harassment, slanderous, bullying, or hateful behavior. All communications with customers must adhere to the TikTok Community Guidelines, as well as our Seller Terms of Service.

Illegal Activities and Promoting Prohibited Products

Sellers are prohibited from promoting illegal activities to customers through TikTok Shop Chat. These prohibited activities include, but are not limited to, the following actions:

• The sale or promotion of prohibited, counterfeit, and illegal products.
• Any form of gambling or incentivizing customers and users to engage in gambling.
• Any fraudulent activities and scams.
• Any action that could potentially deceive customers in order to gain unlawful advantages or benefits.
• Sending viruses, malicious code, or software to customers or users.

Intellectual Property

• Sellers are strictly prohibited from infringing, encouraging, or enabling the infringement of the intellectual property or personal rights of others. This includes but is not limited to, transmitting texts, images, photos, software, or other materials protected by copyright or trademark rights. Learn more about our Intellectual Property Policy.

Data Privacy

• To promote customer safety, TikTok prohibits sellers from disclosing customers' personal information. Sellers are also prohibited from using customers' personal information in any way other than to fulfill orders placed on TikTok Shop.

Pornography, Adult Nudity, and Sexual Content

• Sellers are prohibited from communicating or sending any messages to customers that contain or allude to pornography, sexual behavior, or adult nudity. Sellers must also adhere to the TikTok Community Guidelines.

Soliciting Additional Payments

• Sellers are strictly prohibited from soliciting additional payments for purchases made on TikTok Shop on the platform or offline in any way.
  • This includes, but is not limited to, additional purchases, add-on purchases, increasing the price, return fees, shipping fees, return shipping fees, exchange fees, stocking fees, restocking fees, warranty fees, or extended warranty fees.

Redirecting Customers From TikTok Shop

• To promote customer safety, TikTok Shop prohibits any attempt to bypass TikTok Shop's sales process or redirect users to unauthorized websites or sales processes. Prohibited behaviors include, but are not limited to:
  • Soliciting any customer's personal information.
  • Diverting transactions off of TikTok Shop.
  • Soliciting additional payments of any kind.
  • Sending any unauthorized third-party information to customers (such as sending unauthorized third-party links, bank accounts, third-party payment accounts, QR codes, or other instant communication accounts, e-mail addresses, offline store addresses, and contact information).
  • Offering customers an off-platform return and/or refund. All return and refund requests must be carried out through TikTok Shop. Refer to our Customer Order Cancellation, Return and Refund Policy.
  • Asking customers to cancel an order.
  • Prompting customers to purchase items through external links, usernames, websites, etc. or adding a seller's contact information in video and product descriptions, direct messages, etc.
  • Sharing promotions such as discounts, free shipping, wholesale prices, etc. that takes place off of TikTok Shop.
• Sellers who attempt to redirect traffic in any way will be subject to enforcement actions in accordance with our Seller Enforcement Policy. Learn more about Redirecting Traffic.

Soliciting Feedback and Tampering

• Sellers must not use TikTok Shop Chat to solicit, incentivise, or offer customers any form of monetary or non-monetary reward in exchange for a positive review or altered feedback. All communication with customers must adhere to our Review Policy.

Spamming or Unsolicited Marketing

• TikTok Shop prohibits unsolicited marketing or promotional messages to customers. This includes, but is not limited to, sending spam or any repeated advertising information without the customer's consent. TikTok Shop sellers may not send SMS messages to customers unless the customer has explicitly opted into receiving such communications with the seller off-platform.

Communication Service Requirements

Sellers must comply with the following requirements when providing customer service.

Before-sales Service

Customer Service Response Time (Before-sales)

• Customers may raise inquiries about the product, logistics, warranties, and or anything else relevant to the product or brand, before an actual purchase.
• Sellers must respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours of receiving the message. When the Chatbot is turned on, this requirement does not apply on weekends, but all messages received over the weekend must be answered by Monday 12 PM local time.

Provision of Accurate Information

• Sellers must ensure that the information in messages sent to customers is accurate and consistent with the information on the product detail page. Sellers must take immediate action to correct any information that is inaccurate about their product.
• Sellers are solely responsible for any customer confusion or dispute arising due to unclear, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
• Sellers must handle any resulting customer inquiries, requests, or complaints swiftly and appropriately, that complies with all applicable laws and regulations.
• Sellers are prohibited from using misleading or fraudulent language during customer communications (such as offering better prices or discounts, favorable warranties or services, and other after-sale deductions).

After-sales Service

Customer Service Response Time (After-sales)

• Customers may raise after-sales inquiries or complaints on topics such as order cancellation, shipping details, shipping status, returns and refunds, and other warranty requests.
• Sellers must respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours of receiving the message. When the Chatbot is turned on, this requirement does not apply on weekends, but all messages received over the weekend must be answered by Monday 12 PM local time.
• Sellers must comply with our Customer Order Shipping Policy and Customer Order Cancellation, Return, and Refund Policy and provide appropriate and high-quality customer service.

Return and Refund Requests

• When providing after-sales services, sellers must strictly follow the order cancellation, returns, and refund information displayed on their product detail page.
• Changing the service conditions to less-preferential ones after a customer's order is placed is strictly prohibited.
• Sellers must ensure that their cancellation, return, and refund policies adhere to our Customer Order Cancellation, Return, and Refund Policy and Refund Without Return Program.
• Sellers are solely responsible for any customer confusion or dispute arising due to unclear, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
• Sellers must swiftly and appropriately handle any resulting customer inquiry, request, or complaint and comply with applicable laws and regulations.

Customer Service Performance EvaluationKey Performance Indicators and TargetsTikTok Shop expects sellers to communicate with customers professionally, efficiently, and in a timely manner.

24-Hour Response Rate

The 24-Hour Response Rate measures the percentage (%) of customer-initiated chats that a seller responds to within 24 hours, measured over the past 7 calendar days. It is calculated by dividing the number of customer-initiated chats the seller responds to within 24 hours by the total number of chats that require a manual response from sellers.

• If a conversation is fully handled by a chatbot without being transferred to the seller, it is excluded from the calculation and does not impact the response rate.
• For sellers with the Chatbot turned on, the 24-hour response requirement does not apply on weekends. However, all weekend messages must be answered by Monday 12 PM local time.
• Casual or smalltalk replies (e.g., “Hi” or “Hello”) do not count as valid responses. Sellers must provide meaningful replies that address the customer’s inquiry for the chat to be counted.

Sellers are required to maintain a 24-Hour Response Rate of 90% or higher.

Satisfaction Rate

The Satisfaction Rate is calculated as the percentage of chats rated 4 or 5 by the customer, divided by the total number of rated chats over the last 30 calendar days. Sellers are required to maintain a Satisfaction Rate of 75% or higher.

Performance Evaluation

• TikTok Shop evaluates sellers based on their customer service response time. The 24-Hour Response Rate is reviewed every Monday, based on performance over the last 7 calendar days. Only sellers who received customer messages during that period will be assessed.
• The following will not be counted in the 24-Hour Response Rate evaluation:
  • Automated replies, including chatbot and FAQ responses.
  • Customer queries handled by TikTok Shop. Only queries routed to sellers will impact performance metrics.
  • Chats initiated while the shop is in Holiday Mode.
• Performance below target metrics for the 24-Hour Response Rate may result in violations and enforcement actions. If your 24-Hour Response Rate continues to decline after the initial violation, further enforcement actions may be applied. Sellers can submit an appeal through the Account Health Rating page on Seller Center if they believe the violation was issued in error.

Enforcement Actions and Appeals

We regularly review your shop’s compliance with this policy and may take enforcement action if any violations are identified. This may include rejecting your category qualification application, assigning violation points, or removing product listings. For more information on enforcement actions, refer to our Seller Enforcement Policy.
If you'd like to appeal an enforcement action, visit the Appeals section of our Seller Enforcement Policy for guidance on how to proceed.