As a home bakery business owner, you will be asked the same questions repeatedly. Customers may want to know about menus, delivery options, and prices. You need to answer these inquiries to build trust, but you don’t want to spend time answering the same questions repeatedly–the solution: Gmail templates.
This post will teach you how Gmail templates will allow you to answer common questions within a minute or so. We will guide you through setting up your Gmail templates and share best practices for using them.
If you own a home bakery business and your time is limited, you will find the information incredibly useful.
The Importance of Gmail Templates for Your Home Bakery Business
You are going to get a lot of questions about your products and services. Many of these will be sent to your email.
As a successful home baker, you want to answer those emails. Customer service is vital when running a business; if you aren’t careful, you can spend too much time answering the same questions. Read my post 4 Easy Ways to Provide an Exceptional Customer Experience, where I do into details about being responsive and clear in customer communications.
With Gmail templates, you can create email templates that will allow you to answer the most common questions with a couple of taps of your mouse (and a bit of light editing). You can save a ton of time when answering your business emails. The best part? Your Gmail templates will be available wherever you access Gmail, and you can answer emails quickly ‘on the go.’
We want to point out that we are purely focusing on Gmail templates here. Other email services will likely have some template system too. If you have one of those, then the same principles apply; it just may be a touch different getting those templates set up.
Creating Your Gmail Templates
Creating your Gmail templates is simple. There are two steps, and you can start writing your first Gmail templates in minutes.
You only need to do the first step once.
Activating Gmail Templates
The first step is to activate your Gmail templates. As we said, you only need to do this once. Follow these steps:
- Sign into your Gmail account
- Click the Cog in the right-hand corner of your inbox.
- Select ‘See All Settings’
- Select ‘Advanced’
- Select ‘Enable’ next to the Templates option.
- Save
That’s it. Templates are now turned on for your account, and it’s time to start creating them!
Creating And Saving Your Template
You can have as many templates as you want. Start by thinking about some of the more common questions you get. For example, how to get quotes, order products, or delivery options. Think about the questions that you are spending all of that time answering. You can continually expand your template collection later on when other questions start to roll in. Check out my post on How to Ask Customers for Reviews and Testimonials. Creating a template for asking for reviews is just one way to use this time-saving feature.
Follow these steps to create a template:
- Click ‘Compose’ as you would if creating a new email.
- Write your Gmail template. Ensure that this covers the answer to the question you anticipate being asked.
- Click the three dots at the bottom of the compose screen.
- Select ‘Templates’
- Select ‘Save Draft As New Template’
- Give your template a name, and make sure it is descriptive so you can find it again. When you respond to an email, this name will also become the ‘Subject,’ so don’t use an offensive name either.
Repeat this process for each template you wish to make.
Using Your Gmail Templates
Now let’s teach you how to use those Gmail templates to answer the most common questions you get related to your home bakery business.
Selecting Your Template
Whenever you receive a common question in an email, hit the ‘reply’ button as you usually would. However, don’t type anything. Instead, do the following:
- Click the three dots at the bottom of the compose page.
- Select ‘Templates’
- Select your saved template.
Your saved template will be copied and pasted straight into that email.
Edit The Template Before Sending
Don’t hit that ‘send’ button right away. Instead, carry out a bit of light editing of your template. Make sure that you answer the customer’s question. If they have any additional questions, then make sure that you include a reply to that too. We love to make those email responses personalized, so you may even want to include the customer’s name. People appreciate the personal touch from businesses local to them.
If you are going to include a customer name in the response, be sure to flag that in your template. You could so something like this: [ADD FIRST NAME HERE!!!!!]. Using bold and caps, the text will easily stand out to remind you to update it with the customer’s name.
Even if you have to do some light editing, you will still be saving so much time compared to drafting an entire email from scratch. Something that may typically take 5-10 minutes to write can now be wrapped up in a minute or two.
When happy with the email, hit the ‘send’ button.
Managing Your Gmail Templates
Eventually, you may need to update your Gmail templates. For example, your prices may have changed. You can do the following:
- Create a new email.
- Get the template that you want to be loaded up. The same way as if you were sending an email using the template.
- Edit the template how you see fit.
- Click the three dots at the bottom of the page.
- Select ‘Templates’
- Select ‘Save Draft As Template’
- Now, select the template that you wish to overwrite. Make sure that you choose the right one.
Final Thoughts
Using Gmail templates can save you a lot of time while running a home bakery business. Get a couple of quality reply templates for your business’s most common questions. You could spend less time answering customer emails and more time focusing on doing what you do best: baking delicious products.
FAQs about Setting up Gmail Templates
Q: How do I start figuring out what goes into an email template?
A: Look at your sent emails and see what customers have asked before. Is there a pattern? You can start with one template and add more as needed.
Q: How many templates should I have for my home bakery business?
A: The number of templates will depend on how complex your business is and how many kinds of questions you routinely receive. Begin with the most common questions and work from there.
Q: Won’t I still have to take time to tweak the email?
A: YES. You never want to send a template as is without making sure you are answering questions. It’s also nice to personalize the name. Templates are a time saver, but you still need to edit.
Q: If I create a bunch of templates, how do I keep track of them?
A: Label each template appropriately so you can quickly know the best answer for the inquiry.
Q: How else can I use the templates I create?
A: You can save your templates to the notes app on your phone and use that text to answer messages on social media. Copy and paste is your friend!
