,Using templates can sometimes be viewed as a hands-off, impersonal approach. But, the truth is that this doesn’t always need to be the case.
Not every company can spare the time and resources to personalize every email. At the very beginning of your company’s journey, there might be time for this. But if you need to send out a hundred emails a day, this will very quickly become prohibitive. There are also going to be cases where a template is the exact option that you want to use, but other times when a template is a bad choice. Knowing when to use templates and when not to can be very important.
Why templates are good
Templates come in different forms. You can use them for billing-related matters, updates, and even requests. Templates save time (and thus money) and can be very useful and easily modifiable if the need arises. You can easily change, names, dates, and more and still save considerable amounts of time.
Because templates are prepared in advance, you can also spend a little bit more time during the preparation period in order to communicate more information. For example, if you needed to type out billing details in every email, this could be very time consuming (and could potentially introduce errors). Imaging what could happen if you accidentally flip two numbers in banking details! Give yourself the ability to reliably repeat details without needing to constantly second guess (or need to re-read them again and again).
Another major benefit to templates is that they are able to greatly simplify the training process.
This is one of the primary reasons why many journal management systems include options to use templates for many forms of communication.
Even if you’re not using a journal management system, finding ways to improve your workflow might be as simple as using templates for many situations.
When to not use templates
Using templates might be a great way to save time, but they aren’t always the best choice. Sometimes, there are cases where delicate matters need to be discussed and templates can feel rude or dismissive. For example, if your company has made a mistake and an author has a complaint, templates communicate the message that “we’re not listening to what you’re saying”. It’s important to make sure that your authors feel heard.
Sensitive matters such as why a manuscript has been rejected, or why someone’s opinion is incorrect, might also need to be addressed in a personal way.
Remember that in cases where mistakes are made, it is important for people to feel like they are being heard and understood. In these cases, you’ll want to take the time to write responses in a personal way (even if you’re starting point is still a template email).
Does this mean that templates are useless in these situations? Not necessarily. You can easily take important parts of templates and use those in an otherwise custom email. Whatever you wind up doing, make sure that you address the author’s concerns.
Templates are also not ideal in cases when you need to make specialized requests. If you want to invite someone to join an editorial board, this might be a place to avoid using a template. People are usually very good at determining when a template is being used, and if you’re not careful, you’ll create the impression of being a “spammy” company.
How to prepare a template
This can be a very complicated answer. The short answer is through experience. As you write emails initially, before you have a template, you’ll find yourself using certain terms or ways of phrasing things that you like. Perhaps its a particular greeting,
Good day; I hope this email finds you well; Esteemed colleague
Or perhaps the way you sign off your email,
Best wishes; Hoping to hear from you soon; Sincerely
Whatever you choose, just make sure that it is something that works universally. “Hoping to hear from you soon” is great for when you are contacting an author about submitting work, but might land badly if you’re using this when you reject a manuscript for publication.
Take time to think about how your template might be read and understood by the person receiving it.
Make sure others read them
When you read something again and again, it’s very easy to read what you “mean” and not what you “wrote”. Authors will miss errors in things that they’ve read dozens of times over. It’s normal. This is why people hire editors to proofread important work. But, make sure that another pair of eyes (or several pairs of eyes) go over the templates as well. Other people on your team reading your templates can help. They can point out if something is too direct or perhaps not clear.
Mistakes can happen in many different ways. Don’t stress about it. Make sure that you try and ensure that simple mistakes are avoided.
Trust your team to help you in this project.