Using OpenAI and Automations to Manage Customer Relations

Maintaining positive relationships with your customers is a crucial part of converting one-time purchasers into repeat buyers and establishing a network of loyal customers that helps your business grow. One no-cost way to do this is by adding personalized touches to your communication flow, like ‘Thank You’ emails that don’t just follow a strict template.

Spreadsheet.com helps you do this in a non-resource intensive way with OpenAI integration that lets you harness the power of ChatGPT in your workbooks, native no-code Automations, and more. Read on to see these Spreadsheet.com features in action and learn how you can set up a customer relations workbook in just a few minutes.

Store Customer Information with Rich Data Types

Spreadsheet.com workbooks let your workbooks collect more than just letters and numbers. Over 25 rich Data Types let your cells include image and file attachments, dropdown select lists, actionable buttons, and more.

Choose from more than 25 rich Data Types to include more than just text and numbers in your workbooks

In our workbook, we’re using…

  • The Autonumber data type in Column A to automatically generate an order number when a new row is created
  • The Select data type in Column F to record the status of an order
  • The Email data type in Column H to automatically format and hyperlink customer email addresses
  • The Checkbox data type in Column K to mark whether or not a customer has been contacted

Try adding additional Sheet Views to your workbook to see your data with different filters, groups, or sorts applied. Or, add a different type of View like a Kanban View or Calendar View to transform your data entirely.

Adding different Views to your workbook lets you see your data in a completely different way

Ask OpenAI to Write a Personalized ‘Thank You’ Email

Sending customers personalized ‘Thank You’ emails after they contact you or make a purchase is a great way to build long-lasting relationships and turn one-time customers into return buyers. But when you’re operating at scale and have a client list that stretches into the hundreds or thousands, you may not have the resources to give each interaction a personal touch.

Spreadsheet.com’s OpenAI integration helps automate this process, harnessing the power of the same OpenAI models behind ChatGPT to draft personalized emails. With the OPENAI_COMPLETE function, you can ask OpenAI to write an entire email, or portions of an email that you can assemble later with Automations.

For example, you might use OpenAI integration to draft an email that…

  • Includes a fun fact about the city that your customer lives in
  • References the item that the customer purchased and includes tips on how to use it
  • Suggests similar products that the customer may enjoy
  • Includes a goofy limerick about the purchased item or the customer
The OPENAI_COMPLETE function lets you harness the power of the same OpenAI models behind ChatGPT in your workbooks

In our workbook, we’ve asked OpenAI to write a fun fact about the city where a customer lives, which we’ll then use as part of our automatically-generated email.

While OpenAI integration is a powerful tool, remember that it is not flawless and may generate erroneous text. Always check the text that OpenAI generates for grammatical and factual errors, especially before sending it to a customer.

Learn more about working with OpenAI in our guide “5 Tips and Tricks for Using OpenAI in Spreadsheet.com”.

Send Customer Emails with the Button Data Type and Automations

With native no-code Automations and the Button data type, you can send emails to your customers without ever leaving your Spreadsheet.com workbook.

Set up a Button column in the same worksheet as your OpenAI-generated emails, like we’ve done in Column J – Send Email below:

The Button data type lets you add actionable buttons to cells that can trigger Automations or direct users to a link

When you configure your Button column, you’ll be prompted to select an existing Automation, or to configure a new one.

Automations consist of two components: a trigger (the thing that starts the automation) and an action (the thing that happens when the trigger occurs). When working with the Button data type, the trigger is: “When [Button] is clicked”. And because we want to send an email to our customer, our action is: “Send Gmail [Message] to [Email]”.

Automations are made up of a trigger and an action, and don't require any coding or scripting to configure

Click the “Message” button to configure your email message. Emails sent with Automations can consist of both static text and dynamic tokens, or text that is referenced from workbook cells. In our Automation, we’re using dynamic tokens to include the name of the customer, the item that they purchased, and the text generated by OpenAI.

Messages sent with Automations can include static text and dynamic text that comes from workbook cells

Once your Automation is saved, you can draft and send customer emails at the click of a button – literally. Buttons can have multiple Automations assigned to them, so you can use the same Button to draft and send your email, change a status Select column to ‘Email Sent’, and even move the entire row to another workbook all in one step.

Get Started with Spreadsheet.com Today

Ready to level-up your customer communications workflow? Get started with a free Spreadsheet.com account today. Browse our Template Gallery to get a head start, or create a new workbook of your own.

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