A reusable reply template, often with placeholders and a /shortcut, for common questions.
A canned response is saved, named text you insert into a reply instead of retyping it. Most help desks let you trigger one with a /shortcut and fill placeholders — like the customer’s name or order number — from the ticket, so the answer reads as personal even though the skeleton is reused.
Why it matters
A large share of inbound questions repeat: refund policy, password resets, “where’s my order.” Canned responses cut the time spent typing the same answer, keep wording consistent across a team, and lower first response time. They’re most useful when paired with a small, well-maintained library rather than hundreds of stale snippets.
Canned response vs macro
A canned response only inserts text. A macro bundles that text with actions — set a tag, change status, assign, trigger an automation — so one click both replies and updates the ticket. Put differently: every macro can contain a canned reply, but a canned reply on its own does nothing beyond paste text.
Common pitfalls
- Sending a template that still shows a raw placeholder like
{{first_name}}because the field was empty. - Letting the library grow stale, so agents paste outdated policies or links.
- Over-using them — a canned reply to a nuanced complaint reads as a brush-off. Treat them as a starting draft, not the whole answer.
For example, a SaaS support desk keeps a dozen vetted snippets for billing and onboarding questions; agents insert one, edit a sentence for context, and send — fast without sounding robotic. The discipline is curation: a small library that everyone trusts beats a sprawling one nobody can navigate, and a quarterly review to retire dead snippets keeps it honest.
How Leodesk handles it
In Leodesk, canned responses are shared across the shared inbox and inserted from the composer with a /shortcut, with placeholders filled from the ticket. When an answer needs to do more than paste text — tag, reassign, close — promote it to a macro or wire it into an automation so the routine work happens in one step.