When it comes to running a successful business, whether online or on the street, it has gotten to the point where business email may be more important than a business phone. In many ways, email is more efficient. Since all of the information is right there on the screen, there is no need to play phone tag to verify it. This is why it is vital to decide on an email provider that offers you everything you need. When looking at potential business email providers, it is important to consider several factors.
The first thing to think about is the support structure of the business. It is tempting to think that everything can be automated with the internet, but this is not how things work in the real world. The internet is still run and used by human beings, and issues can arise as a result. If you discover that your email system is having problems in the middle of the night, the last thing you want to have to deal with is that the support staff is not available. Of course, it is not only the hours of availability but the quality of the customer service that counts. If nothing else, a test run should be made by getting in touch with the support staff before setting anything up. In most cases, this is fairly representative of the level of support you will receive from them when you become customers. You will also want to avoid a tiered support system. In other words, you want to have a direct line to somebody who can help you, rather than being endlessly redirected to new representatives. Language barriers can also become a problem, so it is a good idea to make sure that the support staff clearly speaks and understands your native language.
Another vital consideration is the level of security offered by the company. A great deal of important business information is sent and received through business email. Any email provider you work with must provide you with a secure interface so that there is little chance of company secrets being leaked out. To control the physical access to data, there should be several levels of authentication in place. All files sent over email should go through a standardized encryption process to ensure that third parties now obtain access to the information. The provider should also regularly update its IPs to ensure that your information is never sent into a recipient’s spam folder. Many email providers that allow bulk emails to be sent end up with blacklisted IPs. Take care to ensure that this is not an issue with any email provider you are considering.
It is also important to make sure that the amount of uptime is high. When a business relies on email for its information, business comes to a halt when the email system stops working. It is always important to check for uptime guarantees. An uptime guarantee is not a promise that the email server will never go down. It is a promise that financial compensation will be offered if it does take place. Any email provider who is unwilling to incur penalties for downtime is an email provider with no direct incentive to avoid downtime. Check the Service Level Agreement of any email provider before agreeing to do business with them. Ensure that the penalties are appropriate enough to motivate the provider to fix issues as quickly as possible.
While it is not a top priority, it can be quite helpful in a business’s operation to find an email provider with a good set of features. The fact of the matter is, choosing the lowest cost email provider is not typically the right choice. This is because reduced capabilities can slow down the productivity of the workforce. At the same time, it is important not to go overboard with features that are not necessary. This only results in paying more for email than is truly necessary. It is a good idea to choose an email provider that provides a choice between several different platforms. This allows a business to avoid using several different providers to take advantage of email-related features. It also allows a business to choose the level of features that make sense for its capabilities and adjust them in response to business performance changes.
Finally, price is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a business email provider. This is fairly obvious, of course. But it is also important to discover the true price of a service before signing up for it. Several email providers have numerous hidden fees. Some of them will lock a business into a contract with a great introductory rate and a horrendous standard rate. Choosing a shallow cost option can also be a bad idea, leading to business email, which is vulnerable to virus attacks, data loss, and extended periods of downtime. When doing pricing research, it is important to consider the possibility of hidden fees in the contract, contract terms and changing rates, and the penalties incurred for early cancellation, if any exist. When looking for an email provider, a business should be well informed of the contract. They should be on a billing schedule that goes from one month to the next, and the business should have the option of opting out of the service at any time without incurring any penalties. A great deal of shopping around should also be performed to find the best price.