Writing a follow-up email is like doing the ironing; everybody hates having to do it and nobody notices when you have, but if you don’t, you’ll end up looking stupid.

Having overheard our sales team complaining about the amount of time they have to spend on writing these things, I decided to see if there was a better way (there is).

Step 1: Open Gmail Settings

Step 2: Open Gmail Labs

Step 3: Enable ‘Canned Responses’

Step 4: Create a canned response

Step 5: This Isn’t Really a Step But Let’s Make Sure You’ve Done It Right

When you click the name you’ve given to your canned response, it should appear. If it doesn’t please get in touch and we can thrash it out on Twitter.

Otherwise, I’ve circled all the relevant bits you have to click so you literally cannot screw this up. Unless you address someone as [name], in which case I can’t help you.

Enjoy.