How can I have a “Dear %firstname%” template in my Gmail?

Question

It seems to be a very easy thing but I am struggling to see how. I need a "Dear %firstname%, [cursor here] Kind Regards etc" template in my Gmail account, so every time I click reply, it is already there. How can I do that?

Answer 1

With the Gmail web client, you can't. You can create a signature, and you can create canned responses (if you turn on the Labs feature), but neither of those things can contain dynamic variable tags.