In a business of one to ten people, customer email usually lands on the owner, in between quotes, deliveries and everything else. ReplyPen writes the first version of each reply, so your time goes to checking and sending instead of typing out the same explanations again.
How much time does customer email take when you answer it yourself?
For many owners it is the part of the day that never appears in a plan: an hour or two of email, spread over the day and often finished in the evening. Most of that time goes into finding the right answer again and writing it up politely, not into deciding what to say.
ReplyPen takes over the writing. You still read every reply, but you start from a finished Draft instead of an empty one. During the closed beta, ReplyPen’s founder answered customer email with it:
“Customer email used to take me two hours a day. With ReplyPen it takes ten minutes, and the quality of my answers is much better.”
Will Dewulf, ReplyPen founder, closed beta
What you save depends on how much email you get and how often the answer is already on your website or in an earlier reply.
How does ReplyPen keep replies sounding like you?
Customers of a small business write to a person, and they notice when the answer suddenly reads like a call center. ReplyPen writes every Draft to your Tone profile: a plain-language description of your writing, built from replies you have already sent. It covers your greeting, the length of your answers, whether you use first names, and your sign-off.
You can read the Tone profile in Memory and correct a trait that is off. The edits you make before sending teach ReplyPen as well, so over time its Drafts need fewer of them.
Can you answer customer emails from your phone?
Yes. ReplyPen places each Draft as an ordinary draft in the customer’s thread, so it shows up in the Gmail or Outlook app on your phone as well as on your laptop. Open the thread, read the Draft, adjust it and send it, like any other email you send from your phone.
That changes the evening routine. An email that came in during a busy afternoon already has its reply written by the time you get to it. Clear a few on the train or after dinner, and keep the laptop for the replies that need real thought. Feedback on a Draft and your Rules are in the ReplyPen web app.
Does it work when customers write in another language?
Yes. Each Draft is in the language the customer wrote in, and it still follows your Tone profile. ReplyPen writes good Drafts in Dutch, French and German, which helps when you sell across borders and answer every language yourself.
What does ReplyPen cost for a small business?
The first 7 days cost nothing. After that, each conversation costs €0.25, so 100 customer conversations in a month come to €25, and a quiet month costs less. Work out your own number in the pricing section.