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Now and then, I like to write about technology tools that practices may want to look into, and this is one of those blogs.
The technology I am writing about today is an app called Typedesk, and it is a tool we’ve tested and applied to help our team and our clients template their communications in more effective way.
For those of you who have previously built up template libraries within your email client, you may be thinking, “What’s the big fuss?“
Well, stick with me, as this is about more than just standardising your email responses for both outbound and inbound emails, as we have done like this:
What you see in that image are all (well, a lot of) the templated emails that form part of our program curriculum.
Previously, I’ve always made these available as downloadable pdf documents within our member site.
However, by using a tool like Typedesk I can take this up a level, providing access to any member of the program so they can find and use any template simply by typing in the corresponding shortcode (which you can see to the right of the image highlighted in yellow).
Again, if you’re all over canned message libraries inside your email client, your reaction might be, “Yeah. So what?“,
Well, there are a number of benefits a tool like typedesk delivers over that method, which are the reasons we have moved away from that as a solution.
Platform agnostic
As well as operating as a browser extension – meaning I can call upon my email templates inside my financial planning CRM, email marketing tool, email client, and any of the other tools that have a web interface – it also operates as a standalone desktop tool.
So, in situations where I prefer to use a desktop version or may need to work offline, I don’t have to go back to old-school cut-and-paste.
My entire template library is always available and on call.
Scalable customisation
Like most tools such as these, I can also utilise placeholders that will prompt whoever is utilising the template to enter simple information – client’s name, personal greetings, or anything else needed to personalise a standardised template.
It can also pull in already known information, such as your name, company name, standardised greetings, or anything else you need it to already know.
This removes the timeto personalise or re-craft emails and also makes sure communications don’t go out with any missed {insert name here} text, which is never a great look
Next Level
So far, nothing to groundbreaking, but here’s where it starts to get really interesting.
The functionality of combining placeholders and pre-written passages added via shortcode means it becomes increasingly easy to build inputs that extend to:
- Pulling in standardised text passages (such as you might find in a Statement of Advice).
- Creating tables,
- Doing basic calculations,
- Offering multiple-choice checklists that dictate what gets input vs excluded,
Ultimately, this kind of functionality removes a lot of the pain that can sometimes be inflicted when documentation has to be created manually.
Even more “bleeding edge”
Like many, I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation with Chat-GPT over the past few months for all sorts of tasks (check out my upcoming Podcast episode to share what I’ve learnt) and come to appreciate how getting the right output often depends on the quality of the command prompts you’re inputting (ie. giving it the right instructions).
So, on occasions we’ve been able to nail the perfect command for:
- rewriting long-form content into short content,
- copy editing some of our webinar transcriptions,
- SEO optimising content,
- Creating covering EDMs for blog posts,
- Writing metadata based on keywords, or
…any number of other small “grunt” tasks that tools like Chat-GPT can get to 80% done faster than I can, I commit them to my Typedesk library of Chat-GPT prompts.
Next time I need it, the right output is just a shortcode away.
Conclusion
Templating your comms isn’t a new concept but with a tool like Typedesk – that operates not only independently of any specific app but also my web browser – not only has it ramped up our own internal efficiency, it’s made it easier to help the practices I work with do similar things.
Once they have access to our Typedesk as our guest user, they (and their teams) can leverage the same shortcodes we do to drop in the very same templates we use.
In short, it’s been a fantastic tool for us and when used across your whole team, it will increase efficiency, improve the consistency of your outbound communication and very quickly open some doors to innovative ways of creating everything from documentation to marketing and more.
Related: Why Engaging With Peers Could Be the Missing Link in Growing Your Practice