What is Quick Reply?
Also called suggested reply, reply chip, suggested action.
A quick reply is a tappable suggested answer presented to the user alongside a message, usually as a row of short chips. Selecting one sends that value as the user's next message, so the conversation stays in the message stream rather than opening a separate form. Most platforms treat quick replies as transient and hide them once a choice is made.
The pattern narrows an open-ended prompt to a small set of expected answers. This raises interpretation reliability, since the returned value is a known token rather than free text, and it lowers effort on mobile where typing is costly. Platforms typically constrain the number of chips and the label length, so options must be short and mutually exclusive.
A common implementation detail is the split between the visible label and the hidden payload. The user sees a friendly phrase while the system receives a stable identifier, which keeps routing logic independent of copy changes and translation. Systems that route on the display text instead tend to break the moment wording is localized.
Quick replies are ephemeral by design. Once a chip is tapped, the options usually disappear so an old question cannot be answered later out of context. This differs from buttons attached to a rich card, which persist in the transcript and can be pressed again, sometimes long after the surrounding state has changed.
Overuse causes problems. Presenting chips for every turn trains users to pick the nearest approximate option instead of describing their actual need, which hides intent and degrades the data a system learns from. Well-designed flows offer chips where the answer space really is closed and leave open questions open.
Key points
- Tappable short options that send a message when selected
- Visible label and hidden payload should be separate
- Transient: options vanish once a choice is made
- Card buttons persist in the transcript; quick replies do not
- Overuse pushes users toward approximate answers
In practice
An assistant asks whether a customer wants to reschedule, cancel, or speak with someone, and shows three chips. The customer taps Reschedule, and the transcript records that word as their message while the system receives the identifier reschedule_booking. The chips disappear, the assistant asks for a preferred day as an open question, and no chips are offered because the answer space is genuinely wide.