Hi everyone,
We use Freshdesk for our support team, and automations have saved us a lot of time — auto-assigning tickets, sending SLA reminders, and using canned responses for common questions.
But lately I have noticed a problem. Some customers reply saying our responses feel robotic, even when the answer itself is correct. I think it is because we are using the same template for everyone, with no personal touch at the start.
What has worked for us so far is adding one personal line at the top of a reply, mentioning the customer's actual issue, before we go into the template part. It takes an extra 30 seconds, but customers seem to respond much better.
I am curious how other teams here handle this balance. Do you:
- Use canned responses only for the first reply, and then write everything manually?
- Limit automations to internal tasks like assignment and priority, and keep customer replies fully manual?
- Or have you found a way to make automated replies still feel personal, for example with better placeholders or ticket fields?
Also, how do you handle this when ticket volume is high? When we get a busy day, the personal line is the first thing the team skips, and then we are back to sounding robotic.
Would love to hear what actually works in real teams, not just in theory. What is your rule for when to automate and when to write by hand?
Thanks for sharing your ideas
