Gmail Now Comes in a Can?

I am an unabashed lover of Gmail, the free email ser­vice offered by Google.  This week the Gmail team intro­duced a new fea­ture that has some real value — Canned Response.  The fea­ture allows you to “pre-write” stan­dard email mes­sages that you can then call up with one click and send as a response.

My first gut reac­tion to this was “email for the lazy.”  I thought to myself how imper­sonal to not take the time to write out each and every response in detail to the per­son on the other end of the mes­sage.  But then it hit me.  You could use this for numer­ous appli­ca­tions as a way to save time and improve the qual­ity of your responses.

Here is one exam­ple.  Direc­tions.  Sup­pose peo­ple are often ask­ing you for direc­tions to your work­place, direc­tions to your home, or direc­tions to your favorite cof­fee shop.  By typ­ing the direc­tions to these places up ahead of time, you can eas­ily send peo­ple a detailed map with proofed instruc­tions as to how to get to the desired loca­tion.  This might include where to park, land­marks, the name of the recep­tion­ist, a descrip­tion of your­self, or any num­ber of other rel­e­vant details that do not fre­quently change.  When some­one needs direc­tions they are not seek­ing out a per­sonal response or opin­ion, they just need func­tion infor­ma­tion.  Thus, a canned response helps everyone.

Now, should you use this fea­ture as a response to per­sonal thank you emails, com­ments on your blog, or other spe­cific responses?  I would cau­tion against it.  Once some­one gets a few of the same mes­sage from you, it can be annoy­ing.  Like any­thing else, there is a right time and place for it.  Used cor­rectly, this fea­ture can be really helpful.

Offi­cial Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Canned Responses