Answering emails: detailed listing and FAQ pages are more like "filters" that decrease the number of emails you receive. They do not make answering emails any quicker or more efficient, these filters simply leave you with less emails to answer.

So what do you do with the emails that pass through your FAQ page and detailed listing? How do you save time on answering emails, how do you make answering emails more efficient? The answer to these questions is also surprisingly simple, and very effective.

The trick is to have the answers ready before you receive the question. How? By creating your very own FAQ copy and paste answers file! This is exactly like a FAQ page. Same questions, same categories and when you receive a new question you should ad it to your own FAQ list as well as the one in your listings.

The only difference between your own FAQ copy and paste and the FAQ page for your visitors is that the answers are written differently. The answers in your copy and paste FAQ list should be written differently. What I mean by that is the answers should answer exactly the same question but not appear as if they were copied and pasted from the FAQ page. All you have to do is rewrite the answers from your FAQ page "in your own words". Here is an example;

FAQ page: Yes we do provide free shipping on all items over $100. FAQ copy and paste file: Absolutely! We will give you free shipping on all items over $100.

Now that you know what I mean, let me explain how to use your FAQ copy and paste file (even though you are probably way ahead of me). When you are answering emails, first open your FAQ copy and paste text file, open your email and start reading the questions people are sending you.

When you finish reading a question click reply, find the appropriate answer in your FAQ file, highlight the answer, copy it and paste it into your email reply box, than simply click send and repeat the process all over again. Just like you would update your FAQ page, when you get a question you don't have an answer to, answer it and add both the question and answer into your FAQ text file.

This technique will save you a ton of time! Now instead of typing all your answers by hand (1-5 minutes) you can simply copy and paste them and move on to the next email, all in less than a minute! I know saving a couple of minutes per email may not sound like much, but if you got a 100 questions to answer those minutes will add up and you will save hours!

Contacting customers by email: besides answering customers' questions you will also need to contact customers. This can also be very time consuming and can take up time that could be better used for something else. And just like with answering questions, you should have most of the stuff you want to ask or tell your customers prewritten.

When you want to contact someone about their payments, order status or thank them for their purchase. Have it prewritten and when its time to contact the person simply insert their name into the prewritten text, click send and your done!

This will save you a lot of time, especially when you have a lot of people to contact. A lot of emails can be sent automatically. Paypal for example has an option that can send an automatic email to the winners of your auctions. This email can contain whatever information you like, though it is highly recommended that you include payment information.

Automatic emails will save you time, but what you must really learn how to do to save time is, recycling. So when you first start contacting people through email, save the text because it might come in handy in the future and save you a lot of time. Once again, Andale also has a good email management function.