12 Canned Responses Every Support Team Should Have (Templates)

Canned responses are saved replies your team can send with a shortcut instead of typing the same answer for the hundredth time. Used well, they make replies faster and more consistent. Used badly, they sound robotic. Here are twelve canned responses every support team should have, ready to adapt, plus a few rules for keeping them human.

How to keep canned responses from sounding canned

• Use the customer's name. Most tools support placeholders like {{requester.name}}.
• Leave room to personalise. Treat a template as a starting point and add one sentence that responds to what the customer actually said.
• Keep them short. If a reply needs more than a few sentences, link a help article instead.
• Review them every few months. Outdated policies in saved replies cause more confusion than no reply at all.

The 12 templates

1. Greeting

Hi {{name}}, thanks for getting in touch! I'm {{agent}} and I'll help you with this. Give me a moment to take a look.

2. Need more information

Thanks, {{name}}. To look into this, could you send me your order number and the email you used to order? Then I can check right away.

3. Looking into it

I'm checking this now. It may take me a few minutes, and I'll stay in the chat and update you as soon as I know more.

4. Shipping times

Orders usually ship within [X] working days, and delivery takes [Y] days after that. You'll get a tracking link by email as soon as your order leaves us.

5. Where is my order?

Thanks for your patience! Your order [number] shipped on [date]. You can follow it here: [tracking link]. If it hasn't arrived by [date], just reply and I'll sort it out.

6. Returns and refunds

You can return items within [X] days of delivery. Here's how: [link to returns article]. Refunds go back to your original payment method within [Y] days of us receiving the item.

7. Escalating to a colleague

This one needs a specialist, so I'm passing you to [team/name], who can help directly. You won't need to repeat anything, as they can see our whole conversation.

8. Bug acknowledged

Thanks for reporting this. I've passed it to our team with the details you sent. I'll let you know as soon as it's fixed, and in the meantime you can [workaround].

9. Feature request

That's a great suggestion, thank you! I've shared it with our product team. I can't promise a date, but requests like yours shape what we build next.

10. Following up after silence

Hi {{name}}, just checking in: did my last message solve the problem? If you still need help, reply here and I'll pick it up.

11. Closing the conversation

Glad I could help, {{name}}! If anything else comes up, just message us here. Have a great day.

12. Outside business hours

Thanks for your message! Our team is offline right now, and we're back at [time]. We'll reply as soon as we're in, and you'll also get the answer by email.

Organise them with shortcuts

Give each canned response a short, memorable shortcut like /ship, /return or /thanks. In our live chat, typing a slash in the message box brings up your saved replies, and the inbox suggests a matching reply when a visitor asks something you've answered before.

For tickets, go one step further with macros: one click sends the reply and sets the status, priority and tags.

Turn your best replies into help articles

If a canned response gets used every day, it probably deserves a help article too. Customers can find it themselves, and an AI assistant can answer with it instantly. Start free and set up your first saved replies in minutes.