Quick Responses

Flat illustration of one shape being copied out into several identical ones

You have typed the parking directions eleven times this week. Same landmark, same turning, same sentence about the barrier being open after 6pm. You could recite it in your sleep, and you still type it out every time.

A quick response is a reply you save once and send with three keystrokes. Type a slash in the message box, type a word, press Enter.

This article covers writing them, using them, and turning a reply you have already sent into one.

Before you start

You are signed in with an account that can reply to chats.
To open Quick Responses under Settings, you are signed in as an Admin. Support Agents do not see Settings, but they can use quick responses in any chat and save a sent reply with Convert to Quick Response.
You have a reply in mind that your team sends more than once a week.

How a quick response is put together

Each one has two parts.

The Message is the text that gets sent.
The Shortcuts are the words you type to find it. One quick response can have several, so the parking directions can answer to parking, carpark and directions.

Shortcuts group your replies rather than name them one to one. Several replies can share a shortcut, which is how parking can hold both the daytime and the after-hours version.

Write a quick response

Go to Settings, then Quick Responses.
Select New Quick Response.
Type the reply in Message. Write it the way you would send it, greeting and all.
In Shortcuts, type a word and press Enter. Add as many as you want, or separate them with commas. At least one is required.
Select Save.

The Quick Responses list showing saved replies with their shortcuts

Use one in a chat

Open a conversation in Chats and put your cursor in the message box.
Type / at the start of a word. The list opens.
Keep typing to narrow it down. Typing /park shows only the shortcuts that match.
Use the arrow keys to move through the shortcuts and the replies inside them.
Press Enter to drop the reply into your message box.
Change anything you want to change, then send.

The quick responses list open in the message box after typing a slash

Turn a reply you have already sent into one

The best quick responses are the ones you have already written by hand, because you know they work.

Find the message in the conversation.
Open the menu on that message and select Convert to Quick Response.
The message is filled in for you. Add a shortcut, then select Save.

Keep the list worth using

A list of six replies your team knows by heart beats a list of sixty nobody reads.

Select Edit on a quick response when the details change, such as a price or an opening time. Everyone gets the new version straight away.
Search by message or shortcut when the list gets long.
Select Delete for anything nobody sends any more.

The parking directions are now three keystrokes. So is the deposit policy, and the halal certification question, and the one about the private room.