Writing a Memo
Contents
Overview
What can the Morning Flight memo writer do that your word processor can't? For openers, it can access your customer and contact file. That means you can compose, fax and e-mail a memo from within the program ... in under a minute. "Dear Jennifer, Thank you for your inquiry. Our quotation is attached. Please call me with questions," or something along those lines.
Often though, that's enough. A short but quick response is almost always better than no response. And even a canned, boiler-plate note will get you more customer satisfaction than all those meticulously crafted e-mails you meant to send but never got around to.
Step One
Before you can write a memo to someone, that someone has to be in your contact list. Already have contacts on file? Skip step one and go to step two. Otherwise, let's add a fictitious Jennifer Jones at an equally fictitious ACME Supplies company. Remember to delete both after we're done writing this memo.
1.
From the main menu, click the My Store button.
2.Click the My Customers button.
3.
Click the Add button and enter "ACME Supplies" as the customer.
4.Click the Contact tab and copy the information from the screen below. Make sure the salutation is "Dear Jennifer" and that Jennifer is listed as female. Otherwise, click the salutations button and make the corrections. For help, see "Changing the Salutation".
Step Two
The whole idea behind the memo writer is speed, so rather than compose each memo from scratch, we'll build a small library of memo clips. See "Making Memo Clips" for instructions. Here are the three clips we'll need. Replace 555-2643 in clip two with your own phone number.
1.Thank you for your inquiry. Our quotation is attached. Prices are valid for 30 days and do not include sales tax. We estimate that delivery could be made within 3-5 working days after receipt of your order.
2.Please call me at 555-2643 with any questions. I hope we can be of service.
3.A closing statement (with your own name, title and company), formatted as shown below.
Step Three
If your company information already exists, skip this step and go to Writing the Memo.
1.
From the main menu, click the My World button.
2.Click the My Company button and enter your own company name, address, and phone number.
3.Click the My Preferences button, then click the My User Account button and enter your personal profile.
Writing the Memo
It took us a while to get here, but luckily, the first three steps are strictly make ready, one time only. With those out of the way, writing the actual memo takes less than a minute.
1.From the main menu, select Write Estimate > Write/Edit Memo.
2.
In the black panel above, click the Rolodex button to select the customer.
3.
Click either the Add button to create a new memo, or the Update button to edit an existing one.
4.the window that opens, click the Rolodex button to select Jennifer.
5.Click the Text button pointed to by the arrow.
6.In the window that opens, double-click "Thank you for your inquiry ..."
7.Click the Text button in the memo window for a second time.
8.Select, but don't double-click, "Please call me ...
9.
Click the Copy to Clipboard button. Now position the cursor after "your order" in the text box, press the Enter key twice, then press Ctrl-V to paste the second memo clip next to the first clip. Repeat steps six through eight for the closing statement ("Sincerely"), then press OK.
If this particular combination of clips is something you need regularly, save them as a group. Now you need to press the text button just once. And if the text in the text box isn't exactly what you would like it to say, you can edit it without having to change the original clip. Hard carriage returns (when you press the Enter Key) are preserved in memo clips. Note the extra line space between "Sincerely" and "Tom Baker" in our example.
The Result
Click the camera button in the memo browse window to view the memo.
See also