OMG I am LOVING this new-to-me lab, "Canned responses". I didn't know that it existed and literally went in search of another email provider (I'm sorry, I feel guilty saying that but I wanna be honest) because I wanted to create/use different email signatures. Previously in gmail the only thing I could think of was to save "drafts" of commonly sent emails - and then copy/paste the msg into new email, each time. I ran across this gmail feature the other day while I was looking for a solution for my business - found this lab in an article here (woo-hoo! So excited, I even posted it on my blog) and enabled it in the internal email for my business within my Google Business apps. I was not aware that it exists within personal (non-business) email, though - and so I just opened up one of my personal gmail accounts to check - and it is! Woo-hoo!!! So excited. Thanks for creating this feature. I think that you should publicize it more - I know that I will do my part to let other people know about it!
In particular, one way that I am plannig to use it is in response to ads or in emailing potential customers. One business we have is a flooring company (858 Flooring - Serving MD, PA, VA, DE & WV) - when we reply to ads on Craigslist or send emails to possible clients for the first time, we want to include lots of information about the business (complete with links, etc) but these emails may be a bit different from one another, depending who is going to receive the email, whether it is a "cold inquiry" or more of a response to a particular type of ad. Anyway, the only way that we did this before was (as I mentioned) to keep saved "drafts" and use them as "templates" - when we wanted to use one, we would open it up and "copy" it, then "paste" it into a new email. Because I (office manager) made up this crude little system (lol) it made sense to me - and the owner of the company could even use it, once I showed him how to do it, a couple of times. (We both use the same work email account.) As you can imagine, though, I noticed the other day that one of our little "templates" in the "saved drafts" folder was gone - no doubt one of us accidentally opened it up and completed the address field and then hit "send", rather than copy/paste it into a new email message. What I am looking forward to about the "canned responses" feature is how easy it looks like it will be to use - it is literally a drop-down menu, followed by selecting one of the saved 'templates'. Love it.
The only similar feature I have seen is in Outlook, where it is possible to create/use/insert various email "signatures". I am embarassed to say that I went searching yesterday for some kind of similar online solution/alternative - some web-based email provider that would allow me to save/insert various email signatures. I checked out Outlook.com (super confusing - plus they don't offer that option, waste of my time to look and download emails from one of my accounts) and then I found a post about Windows Live Mail, which was going to be my next investigation. (I manage two businesses, ten email accounts, etc - I am slowly trying to come up with some way to centralize my email in one place - but to keep it all online so that I can access it from various computers - home, office, etc.) Needless to say, it is a process - but your "canned responses" lab is going to make it that much easier, for sure.
Thank you!
Suzanne
Suzanne Isabella Marketing
ps - On a side note, I have been committing to the Google suite of products - both at home and at work. It's tough sometimes (Google Chrome / Adobe Shockwave conflict, anyone???) but it's things like this pleasant surprise "Canned Responses" lab that make it easier :)
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