Create reply template

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person
• 7 minutes to read
 • 7 minutes to read

A reply template is a ready-made text that can be pasted into a message you are writing to a contact. Using reply templates will save time and allow you to send personalized messages to your contacts.

Reply templates can also include an attachment, which will then be added to the message. Before you send the reply to the contact, you can edit the text and add, or remove attachments.

Note

You need Knowledge base as functional right to create reply templates.

Steps

  1. Go to icon Main menu in the top bar and select Knowledge base > Reply templates.

  2. Go to the folder you want to put the reply template in. If it does not yet exist, you can create a new folder.

    How to find reply templates in SuperOffice -screenshot

  3. Click the New reply template button.

  4. At the top of the Properties tab in the Reply template properties screen, enter the following:

    • Name: A descriptive name for the reply template.
    • Description: A short description of the contents of the reply template.
    • Folder: By default, the name of the selected folder. You can select a different folder here.
    • Access: Here you determine who is to have access to read and edit the reply template.

  5. Select the (Unspecified language) tab.

  6. In the Properties tab, enter the following:

    • Language: In this list, select which language the reply template is in. The list box contains the languages registered under icon > Customer languages.
    • Default: Check here if you want this to be the default language for this reply template.
    • Subject: Enter the title of the reply template. This is normally inserted into the Subject field when the reply template is used for an email.
    • Message headers: Here you can add predefined content to be displayed in the message header, for example, the To and Subject fields, in an email. This function is only used in special cases.

  7. In the Plain text tab, enter the following information:

    • Include plain text: When you create an HTML version, it is always a good idea to also create a plain text version for email programs that do not support HTML. The email program then automatically selects the correct format. If you do not check this option, the text below is ignored. It is however saved, so you can choose to include it later.
    Note

    If you include both plain text and HTML text, the receiving email program chooses the "best" version, which will normally be HTML. Remember that messages sent without a plain text version are readable only by email programs that support HTML.

    • In the large field in the centre of the screen, enter the reply template content itself. It is always this text that is used when you add reply templates to messages.
    • Spell check: Starts a spell check of the message in the language specified in the Language list.

  8. In the HTML text tab, enter the following information:

    • Include HTML text: Check this option to include the text below in an HTML version of the email. This is used for customers with email programs that can read HTML (such as Outlook). Your message will often come across more clearly if you send the email as HTML, because you can use images and colors in the text.
    • In the large field in the middle of the screen, enter the HTML-formatted text you want to include in the message to the contact. Remember that images linked to here must be on a server accessible by recipients of the email. For example, you can add images that previously uploaded to External documents.

  9. In the SMS text tab, you can add reply template text for sending by SMS. Enter the following information here:

    • SMS text: In this field you enter the reply template body text itself.
    • Number of chars: Here you can keep track of how many characters you have entered.

  10. In the Attachments tab, you can add attachments to include in the reply template:

    1. Click Choose files.
    2. In the dialog, browse to the document you require.
    3. Click Add to add the attachment.
    4. Repeat this procedure to add more attachments.
    Tip

    You can delete an attachment by clicking Delete to the right of the row.

  11. Click OK to save the reply template. The (Unspecified language) tab changes to the selected language. Click Back to go back to the folder structure for reply templates. It is now available for use in responding to customer enquiries.

Create custom layout for replies using categories

To give each department in your company a custom layout for their correspondence, you can create reply templates with different layouts. Each reply template can be linked to a category representing a department. All outgoing replies from the categories (departments) are merged with the department specific design.

Apart from the layout/formatting of the reply template, it must contain the following template variables to merge with the reply:

[[IF:message.bodyHtml!=""]]
[[message.bodyHtml]]
[[ELSE]]
[[message.body]]
[[ENDIF]]

Automatic FAQ reply

SuperOffice Service comes with a set of reply templates. Among these reply templates you will find "Example of an automated FAQ response". This reply template contains an example of automation of replies to the customer, in the HTML text tab.

Based on the customer's request, the system searches for corresponding words (including key words) in FAQ entries in SuperOffice Service. Based on the degree of correlation between these, suggested FAQs that could help the customer are included in the reply template that is automatically sent to the customer to confirm receipt of the request.

You can select the degree of correlation between the request from the customer and the FAQ entries in the field Minimum score for FAQ search result (in percent) in icon System settings > System > Settings.

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