How to Create Canned Response? | 10 Examples

A canned response is a predetermined reply made for common questions and used when there are many queries. It becomes reliable when there is an agent shortage or when there are many queries to answer within a short duration.

For instance, agents can reply with a pre-determined message, such as “We are providing a discount, especially for you! Use code ESPECIAL1 to get 50% off on your first purchase” to all new customers who sign up for your websites or when they ask questions like “Can I get discounts on your product?”.

You can use canned responses on emails, websites, and social media pages to tackle high-traffic common questions.
 

You can use canned responses for hiring employees, sales outreach, or customer service to get their feedback on the quality and performance of your products. You can create templates for customer outreach, acceptance or rejection emails, and questions related to your product pricing to speed up workflows in your organization.

Using canned responses for social media marketing can provide a direct opportunity to reach and interact with your target audiences via private messaging. When customers message you for your products or services, they expect an immediate response. As sometimes there can be too many customers to reply to, canned responses can help you resolve customer queries quickly.

If you have listed multiple products or services, each with unique features on your website, manually responding to the same questions over and over can be time-consuming. With canned responses, you can pre-write answers for each product or service section to address multiple customers at once without repetitive effort.

Call centers or organizations with many clients use live chats to interact with customers. As manually typing each customer takes a lot of time, the starting conversation or a small portion of such chats can be automated using canned responses. Implementing such practices can help agents or salespersons interact with more clients.

A canned response helps shorten response time, directly enhancing customer service and improving company sales, brand reputation, and customer loyalty. It saves employees time and improves efficiency, positively impacting overall organizational efficiency.

Canned responses can also help your business achieve ideal response times by automatically sending personalized messages to match client queries.

Customers appreciate timely assistance, but it is not guaranteed that customer service agents will always be available to solve issues one by one. In such conditions, canned responses provide customers with a self-help option without relying on a support agent.

Automatic canned messages speed up the response time by answering common customer concerns immediately, which would otherwise be a manual task for the support agents.  Implementing canned messages can help customers save a lot of time and offer in-person assistance to specific customers dealing with more complex issues.

Canned responses are pre-approved customer support responses which ensure that all customers receive uniform information with respect to the query they enter. The even flow of information maintains brand authenticity and also reduces the risk of misinformation.

Maintaining even brand voice is important yet tough when there are multiple agents, some new and others old, working together to offer help. Canned messages can eliminate the unevenness in brand voice if you create and review them carefully to ensure they represent the desired brand tone and guidelines.

Canned responses provide better flexibility to cater to customer queries for scalable businesses. When a business grows, the volume of its customers also grows, and so does the number of incoming inquiries. Canned messages can help a greater mass with their automatic and customized responses.

Organizations with high employee turnover rates can find employee training exhausting, but not with canned responses. If companies maintain a set of pre-written responses, it will become easier for the new hires to familiarize themselves with routine customer queries and learn how to respond effectively. This will decrease the employee learning curve and employee training costs.

Creating a canned response is easy but time-consuming as you must study and analyze the queries entered by the customers and personalize each answer. A good canned response should be clear/concise and answer the query by considering the intent of that query.

Although you are required to write specific answers for specific queries, there are some best practices you can follow to create helpful canned responses.
 

• Go through frequently asked questions and find out the most common customer pain points.
• Provide clear guidelines and use call-to-action (CTA) phrases to guide the customer thoroughly.
• Personalize each response by addressing issues, apologizing, and giving polite replies.
• Avoid long, irrelevant information that does not add value to the customer’s concern.
• Maintain a uniform tone to reflect proficiency, authenticity, and clarity.

Whether your customers are curious about your business opening hours, product exchange offers, refunds, or any other features, a canned response can cater to questions of all sorts. For instance, “We are currently resolving your issue. Thank you for your patience!”

Greetings should always be polite and warm so that the customers feel heard when they share their struggles with your product or service. For returning visitors and customers, you can personalize your canned response by mentioning their names to make them feel important.

Example: “Hello [customer’s name]! Thank you for reaching out. How can I assist you today?”

To address consumer issues, you must be fully aware of them. Therefore, always ask the customer about the issue they are facing, for how long, and any additional questions that will help you offer better help.

Example: “Could you please tell us more about the issue you’re facing so that we can offer you better help?”

Customers are naturally impatient but as a service provider it is your responsibility to let them know that their problem has been acknowledged along with the expected duration to get it fixed. This keeps the customers informed and also shows brand professionalism.

Example: “We are currently working on resolving your issue, which should not take more than 20 minutes. You will be updated on our progress. Thank you for your patience!”

When your system adapts to new changes or introduces new features, your customers are likely to either not get them or encounter problems using them. If you ever get complaints or questions regarding the mechanism of such features, it's always a good idea to answer them with proper solution steps and encourage them to ask for help whenever needed.

Example: “It seems like you are having a problem with our [any specific feature]. Here’s how to fix it: [solution]. Please let us know if you require any further assistance!”

Always convey through your message that you empathize with your customer whenever they complain about anything. Listen and recognize the problem, offer help and stay patient, so that you represent brand proficiency and professionalism.

Example: “I apologize that you had such a terrible experience with our feature/service. Please allow me a few moments to pass the message to the respective team and fix the issue as soon as possible.” 

Technical issues may occur suddenly or while fixing bugs or modifying system settings. Once you identify that your system is facing technical problems, it's always a good idea to let your customers know that you are out of service as soon as possible so that the customers don't face any confusion.

Example: “We are currently experiencing a technical issue and working to fix it. Thank you for your understanding. We will be in touch soon!”

After solving any customer problem or answering their questions, remember to encourage them to ask you more questions and clear their doubts. This will create a good brand image among your support and the client relationship will also flourish.

Example: “Please feel free to ask questions and ask for assistance; we are always happy to help you.”

After a client uses your product/service, visit your business, or volunteers to critique a new feature, ask for their feedback and experience. This will make your customers feel valued and help you enhance their experience.
 

Example: “Your feedback is important to us, and we truly value it. If you have a moment, please leave us a genuine review; we would love to hear from you.”

Queries about business hours are one of the most frequently asked questions unless your business operates online. Rather than answering clients with the same repetitive answer, it’s better to write a canned response about your business hours and days.

Example: “Our business hours are Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM. Other than that, we might not be available to be at your service during public holidays.”

Occasionally, when your business offers sales and discounts, it's better to inform and remind them so that it stays in their subconscious and you increase your sales.

Example: “We currently have a special discount available for this summer! Use code SUMMER to get 30% off your purchase.”

The canned response can be a powerful tool to increase efficiency for your business, but if not used properly, it can affect your company's reputation. The things you should do while implementing it are given below.

• Try to personalize it as much as possible.
• Make responses short and to the point.
• Always review and update your canned replies.
• Gathering and monitoring feedback on your canned answers is also a must.
• Only use a canned response to answer frequently asked questions or common queries.

• Make your responses sound robotic.
• Use it to reply to whole conversations.
• Forget to check your canned responses before sending them.

A canned response is a helpful way to quickly answer common customer questions, especially when customer service agents aren’t available during busy times. By using automated, pre-written replies that match the customer’s query intention, businesses can offer faster and better help to the customers in need. Even though these responses can be automatic, they must not sound robotic but feel personal and should answer the customer’s question appropriately.  

If you are considering a phone system with the canned response feature, Calilio can be your best choice. Besides, our VoIP phone service include auto-reply strategy and auto message for your business to maintain customer interaction 24/7. Sign up today!

Auto-responses are auto-generated replies that sound robotic and impersonal. On the other hand, canned responses are personalized, descriptive, and accurate. 

Canned responses are called so because they’re pre-written and ready to use whenever a customer needs them. The term "canned" comes from the idea of something being instantly ready, just like food in a can is ready to eat as soon as you open it.

A canned answer is a predetermined reply created to answer the most common customer inquiries or frequently asked questions. A business can utilize canned answers to help multiple customers find answers quickly at the same time.

Canned Response is also known as a template since they both are pre-written messages that customer support representatives use to respond to frequently asked questions, support requests, and other customer inquiries.