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How To Create Canned Responses Fast? [120+ Best Examples]

by Gosia Szaniawska-Schiavo·Updated

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Efficient customer support has a great effect on your company’s reputation. Just think of all the customer reviews calling your customer service “superfast,” “exceptional,” and “much better than [your biggest competitor’s name here]!”

The canned responses feature can help you make it happen. Quick replies speed up the work of customer service teams and shorten the response time to seconds.

On top of that, you can use them on almost all crucial communication channels, like live chat and email.

In this article, you’ll learn what canned responses are, how to set up canned responses in live chat and Gmail, and get to see the best canned response examples for all occasions:

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What are canned responses?

Canned responses are quick replies that you can create and save in your customer support tools such as live chat or email. Once a customer asks a routine question, you can pick the answer and send it to them, without typing.

Pre-canned responses for chat support are especially useful if you answer a lot of repetitive questions. For e-commerce, these can be questions about the shipping cost or refunds, and for enterprises, questions about adding a credit card to the account or subscribing to a newsletter.

As many as 96% of consumers say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand, according to Microsoft, and 75% of online customers said they expect help within five minutes, McKinsey study finds.

Thanks to canned messages, you are able to respond in seconds, so your customers feel delighted, and you save time.

It’s a win-win situation!

Canned responses examples and templates cheat sheet

Below, you will find the 20 best examples of canned responses, suitable for email, live chat, or both.

Of course, you won’t be able to have an entire “canned conversation” but our examples will help you optimize your answers and avoid miscommunication.

How to use canned responses effectively? Remember that the best canned message is the one that helps your customer.

Feel free to copy any canned response templates, paraphrase them in one of the online text spinners, or customize the content by yourself.

Now—

Let’s move on to the templates themselves.

1. Greeting the customers

For: live chat

When you enter the shop, you are normally greeted by the staff. There is absolutely no reason why online customers wouldn’t experience that in a virtual setting.

The obstacle?

It’s much easier and faster to speak than to type—and typing the same welcome message for customers over and over again can quickly become tiring. Canned responses solve this problem.

Best practice? The more personalization, the better. Throwing in a bit of character and humor can also help, as 71% of people get frustrated at a non-personalized shopping experience.

Using your customers’ native language greeting can be a good idea, even if it’s only one word and the rest of the message is in English.

Also, using the name of the customer can make them feel more welcome and familiar with your company.

Introduction template for live chat:

Tip: Prepare different versions of canned responses to fit customers’ different profiles (e.g. visitors, new customers, repeat customers, foreign customers) and personalize their experience. In Tidio live chat, you can find what language the visitors use in the Visitors List (feature available on the Communicator Plan).

2. Confirming the ongoing work on the issue

For: live chat, email

When a customer emails you with a request, the most important thing is to make sure they know you received their message, and you are working on the issue.

Additionally, your team can personalize the templates based on the issues and group them accordingly.

Canned customer service responses for confirming the work on the issue:

Canned response for customer service email templates:

3. Asking for more details

For: live chat, email

Depending on your business profile, customers might be asking common questions about their order status, or whether you deliver to certain locations. To be able to answer the question, you may need to ask for more details in a way that will be time-efficient and as specific as possible, without sounding robotic and humorless.

Asking for more details template for live chat:

Asking for more details template for email:

Tip: While setting up your email and live chat canned responses, remember to double-check grammar and spelling. Common grammar mistakes can tarnish your image, especially if you use “their” instead of “there” or “your” instead of “you’re”. Read our study about common grammar mistakes to find out how they can influence your brand’s image.

4. Making sure you understand the issue

For: live chat

Avoid any confusion (and unnecessarily long conversations) by clarifying whether you understand the customer’s issue before you give them any instructions or potential solutions. 

To make things easier, you can even create a separate “canned notes” category for yourself where you will save all the canned questions examples and canned statements.

Verifying your understanding templates for live chat:

5. Offering alternative solutions

For: live chat, email

If you are unable to help the customer, be honest about it, but don’t leave them hanging. Instead, be proactive and offer an alternative solution to their issue.

Offering alternative solution templates for live chat:

Canned email response examples to offer an alternative solution:

6. Admitting a mistake

For: live chat, email

We all make mistakes. Regardless of whether it is you or the company to be blamed, inform the customer about the mistake with canned chat and email responses. Always think about how you want to be treated when you have to talk to support. Adding the information about what is being done to fix the problem is a good practice, too.

Apology, canned response example for live chat:

Apology, canned response example for email:

7. Transferring to another operator

For: live chat

This is one of the most important live chat canned responses examples! We all hate being transferred, so transfer only when it’s necessary and when you are unable to acquire the information yourself.

Luckily, with live chat, the transfer is not as painful as in the case of phone calls. Operators can freely join and leave any conversation that is listed under the chat list.

Even if another operator joins in the middle of the chat, they will see all the messages that were exchanged so far, so the customer does not need to explain their issue all over again.

Transfer to another operator template for live chat:

Tip: Do not forget to inform the customers that they are about to be transferred to another operator and explain that they don’t have to describe the problem from the beginning. The worst thing customer support can do is to make a customer feel like they are wasting their time.

8. Closing your request/ticket/case

For: email

Sometimes, after customers have their issues resolved, they don’t respond to your follow-up questions or ignore the interactions with the support team. Before you mark the issue as resolved, email them, so you have more peace of mind, and they feel well-taken care of.

Be sure to include the most important details of the case and a short summary of the outcome.

Canned help desk responses examples for email:

9. Putting on hold

For: live chat

If the investigation takes a bit longer than you anticipated, use canned messages for live chat to let the customer know about it and try to be as precise as possible.

Alternatively, you may ask the customer to leave their contact details, so you can contact them later. When you gather all the information you need and are ready to present the solution to the customer, apologize for the hold, and thank them for their patience.

Canned plan examples for live chat:

10. Talking about the competition

For: live chat

It’s natural that the customers look for the best (and cheapest) solutions, so you need to be prepared to talk about your competitors.

Talking about the competition templates for live chat: 

For: live chat, email

Incorporate the links to the most popular resources in your quick answers, especially if the questions are about a specific resource (such as a feature request page or a current subscription plan). Your customers will have more resources to refer to and will feel well-informed.

Canned statements templates for live chat: 

Canned statements templates for email: 

12. Sending special offers

For: live chat, email

If you run frequent promotions, incorporate a few quick chat responses for each offer into your messaging. This will not only save you time but also the confusion stemming from having different conditions and prices for each offer.

Sales and promotions live chat response templates

Canned letters examples for sales and promotions emails:

13. Talking about prices

For: live chat, email

Similar to the case of the special offers, quick responses can spare you remembering the different prices of your products in real-time conversations and while writing many email responses.

Messaging about prices templates for live chat:

Messaging about prices templates for email:

14. Talking about specific features

For: live chat, email

If you work in a company that sells complex services or products, and perhaps rolls out frequent updates, then it can be quite a challenge to keep up with all the details and recent changes. 

Spare yourself a headache and prepare some “cheat notes” in your canned replies. 

Specific features templates for live chat:

Specific features templates for email:

Tip: Keep the responses up-to-date to avoid providing outdated information. Also, try to avoid technical jargon as this may potentially lead to misunderstanding.

15. Guiding your customers step-by-step

For: live chat

Customer service is not only about troubleshooting issues but also helping the customers to complete certain tasks, very often in real-time.

Save common procedures’ descriptions (such as account registration, account upgrade, password retrieval, etc.) as canned responses. Remember that you can include links to video tutorials to help the customer understand their task better.

Tip: Don’t copy-paste instructions from the FAQ they can find on your website. Otherwise, the customers will realize that they received a dry response with a typical canned verbiage. Incorporate some human touch in the messages to make them more genuine. If you want to use chatbots, make sure that you base your messages only on good chatbot conversation examples.

16. Handling complaints

For: live chat, email

Any time you have to deal with a customer’s complaint, show sincere sympathy and acknowledge the customer’s feelings. Express your understanding and commitment towards finding the solution to the situation that took place. It will help you with building long-term customer relationships and improve customer satisfaction in the long term.

Handling complaints templates for live chat:

Handling complaints templates for email:

17. Dealing with confused customers

For: live chat

This is one of the most important chat responses examples. Some visitors are genuinely confused or frustrated, and they might not realize they contacted the wrong company until somebody tells them about it.

Strive to treat each person on the opposite side of the chat with respect. When the customers realize their mistake and apologize, reassure them that nothing bad had happened and end the chat in a polite way.

Examples of canned responses to deal with difficult customers:

18. Dealing with trolls

For: live chat

On the other hand, some visitors can play childish games with you and pretend to be confused. They will only end up taking your time. You always have to remain calm, but if they continue the chat regardless of your efforts put into clarification, or offend you, you can use the ban option.

Response examples:

19. Asking about customer’s feedback

For: live chat, email

Once you help your customer resolve their issue, you can get their feedback. That’s how customer service canned responses help you perfect your customer support best practices.

Asking for customer’s feedback templates for live chat:

Asking for customer’s feedback templates for email:

20. Ending the conversation

For: live chat

A well-written canned ending on live chat will sum up what was agreed upon so far and ask the customer whether there is anything they need help with. If the answer is negative, you can finish the chat and offer your assistance in the future.

How to turn on canned responses in live chat?

Let’s see how easy it is to create and save canned responses for your live chat like Tidio.

1. In the Tidio panel, go to the “Settings” menu in your chat panel and then enter the “Canned Responses” section. Click on the “Add a new Canned Response” button to create a new canned response.

How to set up quick responses in Tidio

2. Then, add your message and click the “Save button”. Feel free to use one of the live chat auto-responses mentioned above! You can later edit or delete an unwanted response.

How to set up quick responses in Tidio

3. To send a quick message during a chat with your customer, just type in the “/“ (forward slash) symbol and choose your response from the list. 

You can make this process faster if you type in any text after the “/” symbol – for example, “/H” will find you all the responses beginning with “H,” and “/help” will find all the responses containing “help.”

An example of how to use a canned response in Tidio chat gif

How to turn on canned responses in Gmail settings?

Now, let’s see how to use Gmail’s email templates to create help desk canned responses in 10 short steps.

1. In Gmail, click the Gear icon, then click “Settings” or “See all settings”, depending on your default view.

How to open settings in Gmail

2. Click the tab that says ‘Advanced’.

How to find advanced settings in Gmail

3. Click “Enable” on the “Templates” prompt and then click on “Save changes”.

How to enable templates in Gmail

4. Now, you can start composing your templates. Start a new email by clicking on the “Compose” button in the upper left-hand corner of your inbox.

How to compose an email in Gmail

5. Create the email message you want to save as your blueprint template.

How to create a message in Gmail

6. Save the template by clicking on the three dots icon on the bottom right-hand corner. Then, hover over “Templates,” and click on “Save draft as a template,” and choose “Save as new template”.

How to save a template in Gmail

7. Name your first canned response in the dialog window and click on “Save”.

How to name a template in Gmail

Let’s see the template in action!

8. Start a new email by clicking on the “Compose” button in the upper left-hand corner of your inbox.

How to compose an email in Gmail

9. Click the three dots icon on the bottom right-hand corner of the compose window, hover over “Templates,” and click on the template name.

How to create a template in Gmail

10. After the response is pasted, add your recipient and click “Send”.

Now, you know how to do canned responses in Gmail. What if you change your mind about certain templates and would want to edit or delete them? Nothing easier.

How to edit a canned response in Gmail?

  1. To edit canned responses, create a new email, and insert the template you would like to edit.
  2. Make any changes, and tap the three dots on the bottom left-hand side of the email window again.
  3. Go to “Templates”, click on “Save draft as template”, click on “Overwrite Template” and select the template you are updating.
How to overwrite a template in Gmail

How to delete canned responses in Gmail?

  1. Click on the “Compose” button to open a window with a new email.
  2. Click on “Templates”, hover over the “Delete template” option, and select the template you want to delete. Voilà! 
How to delete a template in Gmail

Thank you for making it to the end of the article 🙂

By now, you should:

  • Know what are canned messages
  • Be able to set up canned responses on live chat
  • Know how to make canned responses in Gmail
  • Know how to use canned responses in Gmail
  • Have at least 20 ideas of canned responses for your business

Do you have your favorite quick response examples? In what situations do you use them the most? Or maybe you just start your adventures with quick replies? Let us know! ✌🏻

(Psst…if you want to automate your responses, you can consider getting chatbots instead!)

Set up automated messages and provide 24/7 customer service to all your customers

Learn more about Tidio Live Chat

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Gosia Szaniawska-Schiavo
Gosia Szaniawska-Schiavo

Gosia manages Tidio's in-house team of content creators, researchers, and outreachers. She makes sure that all our articles stick to the highest quality standards and reach the right people.

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