Templates and Macros

Supportbench

19-Jun-2025

Unlocking Efficiency: A Guide to Templates and Macros in Supportbench

In any support environment, agents handle countless repetitive inquiries and processes. From responding to common questions to escalating complex issues, these tasks consume valuable time that could be spent on solving unique customer challenges. This is where the power of automation comes into play.

In Supportbench, Templates and Macros are the foundational tools for automating simple tasks, ensuring consistency, and dramatically increasing your team's efficiency. This guide will explore what they are, the significant benefits they offer, and how you can implement them in your workflow.

Core Concepts: Templates vs. Macros

While they work together, it's important to understand the distinct roles that templates and macros play.

What is a Template?

Think of a template as a blueprint or a pre-formatted document with details and structure already in place. It's the "what" of your communication. A template allows you to define the content and layout for any recurring situation, ensuring the right information is included every time.

Common examples include:

• Common Case Responses: A perfectly worded reply for a password reset request or a "how-to" question.
• Case Escalation Summaries: A structured form that ensures an agent provides all necessary information (customer details, issue summary, troubleshooting steps taken) when escalating a case to Tier 2.
• New Bug Reports: A guide with pre-defined sections like "Steps to Reproduce," "Expected Behavior," and "Actual Behavior" for agents to fill out.

By using templates, you ensure every communication is clear, complete, and consistent with your brand's voice.

What is a Macro?

A macro is a set of automated actions. It's the "how" of your automation process. While a template defines the content, a macro executes a series of steps with a single click or command. In Supportbench, macros are typically managed through the Workflows engine.

A macro can be simple or complex, but its purpose is to perform a sequence of tasks automatically. For example, a single "Escalate to Engineering" macro could be configured to:

1. Apply the "Bug Report" template to the case response.
2. Change the case status from "Open" to "Escalated."
3. Re-assign the case to the "Engineering" queue.
4. Add a "bug-report" tag for future tracking.

The Benefits of Using Templates and Macros

Integrating these tools into your daily operations can transform your support team's productivity and your customers' experience.

1. Save Significant Time and Money

Having a pre-defined structure eliminates time-consuming manual work. Instead of typing the same response repeatedly, agents can apply a template in seconds. This allows managers and administrators to focus on critical tasks while empowering agents to resolve common cases faster and move on to more pressing situations. When you automate this process further with macros and workflows, agents won't even have to manually apply the templates—Supportbench will do it for them, dramatically improving key metrics like First Response Time.

2. Ensure Consistency and Reduce Human Error

Templates enforce a uniform structure and tone for all communications, creating a reliable and professional support experience. This consistency impresses current and prospective clients by demonstrating your organization's attention to detail. Furthermore, repetitive tasks like copying and pasting are prone to human error. Templates eliminate these mistakes by providing a validated, pre-approved foundation for content, leading to a vastly improved and more accurate customer experience.

3. Increase Agent Flexibility and Empowerment

While administrators can create a library of standard templates, agents can also be empowered to modify them or create their own custom templates for unique situations they frequently handle. If an agent discovers a particularly effective way to explain a complex topic, they can save that structure and appearance in a personal template, preserving that valuable knowledge for future use.

How to Use Templates & Macros in Supportbench

Here is a practical guide to getting started.

Part 1: Creating Your First Template

1. Navigate to Configuration > Cases > Templates.
2. Click the “New Template” button.
3. Fill out the content. Give your template a clear, descriptive name (e.g., "Password Reset Instructions").
4. In the body, write the full response. You can use formatting, links, and even dynamic variables to automatically pull in customer or case details.
5. Click Save.

Part 2: Using a Template Manually in a Case

This is ideal for situations that still require an agent's judgment but can benefit from a pre-made response.

1. Navigate into any case you are working on.
2. Within the response editor, click the “Load Template” icon (which looks like a page).
3. Select the desired template from the list. The content will instantly populate in the response box, ready for you to review and send.

Part 3: Automating with Macros via Workflows

This is where you unlock true efficiency by letting the system do the work for you.

1. Navigate to Configuration >  Workflows.
2. Create a new workflow and define the trigger. This is the event that will start the automation (e.g., "When a case is created" and "Subject contains 'Password Reset'").
3. Define the action. This is what the system will do. Select the action to apply a template, choose the "Password Reset Instructions" template you created, and configure it to send the response automatically.
4. Activate the workflow. Now, whenever a new case matches your trigger conditions, Supportbench will automatically apply the template and respond without any agent intervention.