Dealing with customer service issues, questions, and comments via social media can quickly become a waste of time and energy for business owners. As somone who has managed multiple accounts ranging from 70K to 5 million, I’ve gotten really good at clearing out an inbox or 100 comment thread efficiently and effectively.

In this tutorial, I’ll introduce you to my favorite method for seamless communication: text replacement. This handy feature is native on most smartphones and will allow you to automatically provide long, well-worded responses with just a few swipes of your thumb. This tutorial will show you how it works, along with the simple steps for setting this up on both iOS and Android.

The worksheet for this tutorial has the steps for both iPhone and Android along with my tips (you can also find them below).

Setting up Text Replacement:

On the iPhone: click on settings (gray icon w/ gear) > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement > click the + sign in upper right to create new shortcut.

On Android: go to Settings > select System> Click on Languages & Input > Click Advanced > Select Personal Dictionary > Click the + sign in the upper right.

Here are my 5 Tips for setting up your shortcuts:

• Use # or another symbol (!* etc) in front of your ‘Shortcut’ words do avoid having it replace words when you are simply trying to type the word.
• Consider preparing these on your computer, so that it’s easier to type out the content and proofread. Then email them to yourself and copy/paste on your phone to set up the shortcuts.
• Include emojis in the shortcut to save time searching for them. You can also include URLs or shortlinks.
• Go through old comments, emails, or messages to determine what types of questions you tend to get repeatedly, then prepare shortcuts for those.
• Save all your shortcuts in a document or spreadsheet and have it handy to reference if needed.