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HOW TO DO A MAIL MERGE
CDP Supply Chain member guide for using mail
merge to provide feedback to suppliers
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Mail merge email – including customized engagement and feedback
To ensure feedback to suppliers is relevant and accurate the majority of our members provide tailored
feedback emails to suppliers. These emails inform and update suppliers on overall levels of
performance on key aspects of their disclosure, and benchmark the suppliers’ response against the
overall level, with the overall aim of increasing supplier capacity on environmental disclosure.
Most members use the Microsoft Word mail merge functionality to reduce the effort levels required. The
instructions below center on the supplier feedback email template, but templates are also available for
engagement at the start of the cycle. CDP email templates for engagement and feedback can be found
on your dashboard.
Step 1: Pick your KPIs
Select the KPIs you would like suppliers to improve on. For example, responding to the CDP Water
Security questionnaire, reporting emission reduction activities, which suppliers have Science-Based
Targets or setting a public policy on palm oil.
Step 2: Customize your email text
Tailor an email highlighting key achievements and areas of focus for suppliers (Fig.1). CDP has
provided a template email built on examples developed by Supply Chain members over the last 10
years. In this template, members clearly identify the ways they plan to use the data, the specific data
points they focus on, and their suppliers’ responses to these data points. The aim is to encourage
further action with suppliers by letting them know how you use the data and where you would like them
to focus improvement efforts for next year.
Figure 1 Feedback example template
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Step 3: Fill out your information for the static parts of the email.
This process consists of updating suppliers on policies and achievements for this year. This includes
levels of action from suppliers in aggregate. We have highlighted aspects members may want to tailor
in the email template in green. Most members pick KPIs from the Snapshot Report and extract the
aggregated data from it. This saves members time and effort as everything you need is set up for a mail
merge in this template.
Step 4: Create a mail merge to send tailored feedback to suppliers.
Start by tailoring the Snapshot to send an email in the language you would like to use. Most members
use the CDP Supply Chain Snapshot Report to send information back to their suppliers. This report has
static ways to describe progress towards KPIs based on ‘yes’ or ‘no’ fields. Some members edit this
information to, for instance in Figure 2 below, display “Reported company-wide water policy” instead of
yes.
Then link the database, in this case, the Water Security Snapshot Report to your email template in
word. To do this: click on mailings, select suppliers, then use an existing list. Select the spreadsheet
you want to use and click ok (Fig.3)
Figure 2 Edited Snapshot Report
Figure 3 Linking the database to the email template in Word
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Add in the tailored information per supplier. Now that the database (Snapshot Report) and email
template are linked you can add the information on your suppliers’ responses to the template. You can
do this by adding merge fields (Fig.4). Simply add a merge field such as “Report company-wide water
policy”, when you finish the mail merge Word will automatically replace these field names with the real
response from your supplier as it displays in the Snapshot Report.
Figure 3 How to add individual supplier information
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Use the preview function to check the mail merge is correct (Fig.5). Select preview results and use the
arrows to glance through the mail merge on a per-supplier basis.
To send the email to suppliers, click on finish and merge. Select send email message. You will then be
asked to select the recipients - in this example (and in most cases) select registered users. Fill out the
subject line and then click ok. This will send tailored feedback emails to all your suppliers.
Figure 4 Preview function
Figure 5 Sending the email
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N.B. You can use the filter function to determine which suppliers receive the email - for instance, only
sending the email to suppliers who reported water information in that specific year. Please ask your
account manager if you need any support with sending tailored feedback messages.
