What are canned responses? 8 examples to copy

A canned response is a reply you write once, save, and paste into a conversation each time the same question comes back. You change the details, such as the customer’s name, and send it. Most are a few sentences long and answer one question, like where to find an invoice or why a sign-in email hasn’t arrived.

Every support tool keeps them under its own name. Gmail calls them templates, Zendesk and Intercom call them macros, Help Scout calls them saved replies and HubSpot calls them snippets. Freshdesk sticks with canned responses.

For a founder who answers support alone, a canned response cuts the typing but not the reading. You still open every question, pick the right reply and press send. Deacon is an AI customer support agent that answers your customers in a chat on your site, in seconds, from your own docs, so many of those questions never reach your inbox. It has a free plan.

Eight canned responses for a software company

These answer questions a small software product hears most weeks. Square brackets mark what you change each time. For the emails that need more care, such as a refund, an apology or an outage, our free customer service email templates tool has seven of those, and fills in your names for you.

The sign-in email hasn’t arrived

Hi [name], sign-in emails can take a couple of minutes, and some land in spam or a Promotions tab. If it isn’t in either, request a new one at [sign-in page] using the address you signed up with. Still nothing after that? Reply here and I’ll send you a link myself.

Where are my invoices?

Hi [name], every invoice is under [Settings › Billing], with a download button on each. If you need your company name or tax number on them, [where to add it]. Let me know if one is missing and I’ll send it over.

How do I cancel?

Hi [name], you can cancel any time from [Settings › Plan]. You keep [plan name] until [the end of the billing period], and you won’t be charged again. If something made you want to leave, I’d like to hear it, but there’s no need to explain.

Can I export my data?

Hi [name], yes. Go to [Settings › Export], choose [CSV or JSON], and the file [downloads straight away or arrives by email]. It includes [what’s in it]. If you’re moving to another tool, tell me which one and I’ll check it can read the file.

Do you have a discount?

Hi [name], we take [percentage] off for [students, nonprofits or early-stage startups]. Reply with [what you need to see], and I’ll apply it to your account. Paying yearly also saves [amount], whoever you are.

Can I have a few more days on my trial?

Hi [name], of course. I’ve added [number] days, so your trial now ends on [date]. If something got in the way of trying [product], tell me what it was and I’ll help you past it.

Please delete my account

Hi [name], I’ve deleted your account and the data in it. [Anything you must keep, such as invoices for tax, and for how long.] If you come back later, you’ll start with a fresh account. Thanks for giving [product] a try.

A question your help article already answers

Hi [name], [the answer in one sentence]. The full steps, with screenshots, are in [link to the article]. If what you see doesn’t match them, reply with a screenshot and I’ll take a look.

That last one is the reply most worth replacing. If the answer is already written down, the customer only wrote in because they couldn’t find it, and a knowledge base they can search, or an agent that answers from it, saves you both the round trip.

Where Gmail and help desks keep canned responses

Each tool files them in its own menu and inserts them its own way. These steps come from each vendor’s help pages, read on 13 October 2026.

Zendesk and Intercom go further than a saved reply. A Zendesk macro is “a prepared response or action”, and an Intercom macro can also assign, tag or snooze the conversation as it sends the reply, so one click answers and files it.

Gmail’s steps are on our email templates page too, beside the seven emails you can copy into them.

Placeholders, the part customers notice

A canned reply sounds canned when the details are wrong or missing. Help desks fill some in for you. Freshdesk’s responses can carry placeholders such as the ticket ID, the subject or the requester’s name, and Help Scout’s saved replies take variables. In Gmail, keep the square brackets in your saved template, so anything you haven’t filled in stands out before you send.

A few habits keep them from reading like a form letter.

• Answer the question they asked. A reply about exporting data, sent to someone asking about importing it, costs you a second email and some of their patience.
• Name each one by the question, in the customer’s words, so you find it in a second when you need it.
• Read it through before you send. A saved reply that mentions last year’s menu or price is worse than none.
• Delete the ones you never use, and rewrite one when the same follow-up keeps coming back after it.

Speed alone can mislead. Intercom’s guide to support metrics says time to first response “can be gamed easily”, for example by “copying and pasting canned responses into messages”. Our entry on first response time suggests tracking first contact resolution beside it, to see whether the fast replies settled anything.

Canned responses vs auto-replies and AI agents

The three are easy to mix up, since all of them send words you didn’t type that minute.

An auto-reply tells a customer you heard them. A canned response answers them, but only once you’ve read their message. An AI support agent answers without waiting for you, as long as your docs hold the answer.

Where an AI agent differs, and where Deacon fits

The trade is control for reach. With a canned response, you approved every word before it went out, which is what you want for a refund, a cancellation or anything with legal weight. With an AI agent, you choose what it reads, and it writes each reply itself. So keep your canned responses for the replies whose wording matters, and let the agent take the how-to questions your docs already answer.

Deacon answers from your website, files you upload, text you paste in and answers you write. A visitor asks in the chat on your site and gets a reply in seconds, at any hour and in the language they wrote in. When your docs don’t cover the question, Deacon says it doesn’t know rather than guess, and asks for their email so you can follow up.

Some of the eight questions above stay with you. Deacon always declines a question about the visitor’s own account, invoice or data, however well your docs cover it, so the deleted account and the missing invoice stay yours to answer. When a visitor leaves their email or asks for a person, it shows in your dashboard straight away, and the owners get an email about three minutes later if nobody on the team has seen it. Your reply appears in their chat under your first name. Human handoff shows the whole route.

Writing an answer in Deacon is the nearest thing to saving a canned response, except you never paste it. Each question Deacon couldn’t answer has an Answer this button. What you write becomes a source Deacon answers from, and Save & check shows the reply Deacon now gives and which other open questions your answer covers. The more you answer, the fewer questions need you.

It also tells you which replies to write. Topics group similar questions, count the people who asked and mark most groups as a how-to, a feature ask, a bug report and so on, so the biggest groups are the answers to write first. You can try all of it on the free plan, with no card and no end date.