The chances are you are using email for your business. It is a way of life and most of us are completely reliant on email to keep in touch with the customers and suppliers. You might well be asking, what is Business Email and why should I be using it? The basic email I’ve got from my domain provider seems to be enough for me, so why would I want to change it? Here is an introduction to business email.
Business email provides the same facilities as normal consumer class email, but with a lot of added functionality. One of the key features that I find most people are interested in is the replicating sent items. With a Business-email solution, such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, you will have a common sent items folder, so when you’re out on the road and you reply to an email on your phone, it’ll be there in your sent items when you get back into the office (and vice versa).
It will also replicate all your emails, no matter which folder you have put them. Meaning you’ll be able to find that email no matter wherever you are. Your mobile phone, or tablet device, is just an “end point” providing access to all your data.
Other features often available in business class email include calendars and contact databases. Just like the email facilities these will also replicate down to your mobile phone. So you have one list contacts all synchronised up and one digital diary that you can access wherever you are.
Sharing access to business email accounts
If you work as part of a team, you can also share access to your mailbox with other people. For example, if you are on leave you might grant someone else access to read your emails while you are away. They can then either reply on your behalf, so the email appears to come from you or take the email and reply to them directly. This, of course, is dependent on what permissions you have granted them! Similarly, you can grant others access to your diary, so they can book things in for you when you are out. This can be a very useful and is something I personally use with my VA. She has access to my emails and calendar, should anything urgent come up when I am out of the office she can look and see and even book in an appointment.
Email mailbox capacity limits
Another key feature is the capacity of your mailbox will be considerably bigger than those provider by web hosting companies. Typically, you might be 100 or 250Mb of storage capacity in one of these facilities. This isn’t a lot and can very quickly fill up, causing your customers emails to either bounce or just not get to you at all. Google Workspace typically has 30Gb and Microsoft 365 has 50Gb of storage capacity. These can of course be increased depending on your needs and indeed budget.
There are of course, many more features included in any Business class email solution. But as this is only an introduction, I will leave it there. I will look to picking this up again in future posts.
In the meantime if you need help setting up your business email, get in touch.
