I’ve been working with a client this morning who employs someone to respond to customer emails from their website. Unfortunately, the email requests are almost always the same thing and require the same answer. Their poor employee spends his days typing the same email over and over and over…
An autoresponder set up on the mail server would be a good enough answer, but a bit too impersonal, and my client wants each email read and personalised if necessary. So how about an email template that automatically includes all the basic info, and can be edited as necessary?
To set up the template in MS Outlook 2007:
- File > New > Mail Message (or just click the New button)
- Windows Button > Save as > Save as Type: Outlook Template (*.oft)
- Give it a name
To send an email based on the template:
- Tools > Forms > Choose Form… > Look in: > User Templates in File System
Select the template required, and you’re ready to go. Any changes you make to the message will not be saved to the template, so it’s ready to use over and over again and the employee’s time is freed up to make the tea more often.
