Replying to emails is part of running an online business. Either you are doing the replying yourself, or you are paying someone to do it for you. Either way, it will save you both time and money to use canned responses. After you customize either Outlook or Thunderbird, you can deliver paragraph's of canned responses to your customers with just a few clicks of your mouse.
I'm going to walk you through the process of setting this up in both Outlook 2007, and Thunderbird 3.0. These tips should work in Outlook 2010 (and possibly 2003), as well as earlier version of Thunderbird 2.x.
Setting up Outlook 2007 for Canned Responses
Open up a new mail message as if you are going to write someone an email. In that window, start typing a canned response that you often give to your customers. Once you are finished, select the entire response (hi-light the text). Under the "Insert" tab, click on "Quick Parts" as shown below.
After clicking on "Quick Parts," select the option "Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery..." A new window will pop up that will allow you to assign this to a category if you want, and change the display name.
Make sure you keep the Gallery listed as "Quick Parts." Once you're done, click the "OK" button. You have just created your first canned response. Back in your email, go to a new line (or delete the previous text you copied into "Quick Parts"). When you're ready to insert you canned response, click on "Quick Parts" under the "Insert" tab (like you did to add a new canned reply), and click on the response you want added from the list that appears.
After clicking on that box showing your canned response, it will automatically be inserted into your email. If you want to add more canned responses just type them out and go through the previous steps I mentioned above to add it to Outlook's "Quick Parts."
Another tip to help improve your Outllook productivity, is to right-click on "Quick Parts" and select "Add to Quick Access Toolbar." Now you don't even need to click on the "Insert" tab to get to Quick Parts. Quick Parts is always available in the Toolbar as shown below.
Setting up Thunderbird for Canned Responses
Thunderbird also has the ability to save canned responses, but it can't do it by default. In order to save canned reponses in thunderbird, you need to download the add-on called Quicktext which can be downloaded here.
Install the add-on and then re-start Thunderbird.
After re-starting Thunderbird a window will pop up explaining that you installed the free version of Quicktext. Click "Close" when that window appears.
Once Thunderbird is open, click on "Write" or "File -> New -> Message" as if you are going to send an email to someone. You'll notice right away that you have a new section in that window that contains the text "Variables" and "Other." That bar is your Quicktext bar.
To start adding your canned responses, click on the "Tools" option from the menu, and select "Quicktext." A new window should then pop up.
Here you will have the choice to create multiple groups, and add your responses to a group you choose. For example, if you ran an e-commerce website, you may get a lot of questions daily where people ask about their order status. If that's the case, you can create an "Order Status" group and list a number of canned responses under that group. You may also have to deal with shipping questions on a daily basis, so go ahead and create a "Shipping" group as well. For this example, I created both a "Order Status" and "Shipping" group within Quicktext.
Once you have finished creating your groups, hi-light a group you wish to add canned responses to and click "Add template." Change the title to something that describes your canned response, and in the large text area type your canned response.
Once you have finished adding your canned response, click on the "Save" button. After adding all the groups and canned responses you want, click on the "Close" button.
Now, go back to your new email message you opened earlier (or create a new message if you closed that window). You should see the groups you created appearing on the Quicktext bar I mentioned earlier. In my case, I have a "Order Status" group, and a "Shipping" group showing. Clicking on one of the groups will show you the canned responses you have that reside under each group. In my case, I want to enter the canned response I created earlier for a canceled order. I first click on the "Order Status" option, and then I click on the "Order Canceled" drop down option.
After clicking on "Order Canceled," the following canned response is inserted into my email:
And that's all there is to it!
Final Thoughts
Take some time and write down some of your most common responses. Take the time to make sure they're very detailed and polite. You may not normally write out long and lengthy replies to your customers explaining things such as how credit card refunds are issued, or why UPS didn't deliver a package on Sunday. But since you only have to write this reply once, take the time to make it detailed. Your customers will hopefully thank you with repeat business because they felt like you went out of your way to give them a detailed reply to their question.
Also, try to avoid making your canned responses sound like canned responses. Make your canned responses sound like something you would normally write. For example, a typical canned response may look like this (replying to a customer who asked why his package was delivered on Monday when it shipped on Friday and he paid for Next Day Air):
"We apologize but UPS does not deliver packages on weekends. Thank you for contacting us."
But instead of using that as a canned response, use something like this:
"Thank you for taking the time to contact us. I have personally looked into your order and UPS is delivering your package correctly. UPS does not consider Saturday or Sunday business days. So while your package shipped on Friday, UPS will not deliver your package until Mondy (the next available business day). I apologize for any confusion. If for some reason UPS does not deliver your package on Monday please write me back and I will happily issue a full refund of the shipping cost back to your credit card. I apologize again for any confusion and please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with."
Yes, it's a long reply. But remember, you only need to write it out once and then you can insert that reply into your emails within seconds with just a few mouse clicks. You'll not only answer all your customer's questions, but you'll make him think you went above and beyond normal customer service. Hopefully you just got a long term customer, while saving yourself time and money in the process.
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