Business Email Systems – What should I use?

There many things to consider. The increasing demand for Email reliability, higher mobility and business related features means that companies now need a more effective Email service.

Most people we find are using free services such as; Gmail, Hotmail, or the ‘pop 3’ accounts which are the free ones provided usually by your website hosting company free of charge. You may be lucky and have an Exchange server in house or using the very efficient hosted cloud version of Exchange with all its lovely gadgets.

Let’s take a quick look at the different options available so you can decide what is best for your business. But first, here is a list some of the reasons you should consider updating your system:

• Mobility – nowadays people need a service which is designed for mobile users as you can login and work from anywhere anytime. The service automatically syncs with mobile devices such as iPhones and androids.
• Security – antispam and antivirus need to be installed, this gives you exceptional cover against malicious attacks.
• Cost – how much do you value your email? How much is it essential to the running of your business? Would extra features such as out of office, signatures and synced calendars and contacts make your life that little bit easier?
• Business Continuity – an important part of any business today is ensuring that your data remains available at all times, are you able to access your email from anywhere anytime? And does your current provider provide service levels to guarantee this happens?
• Support – do you have access to support in case emails get lost or missing?

The different types of Email Systems available:

There are free versions such as; Gmail, Hotmail or other provided by your internet provider such as mrsmith@btconnect.com. These are very well known and popular Email services, chances are for most of us they may have been the first email account you ever had! They are great if you don’t mind not having your business name of your emails and don’t need any advances features.

The disadvantages are though; support is poor and you have no comeback if Emails go missing. They are also a dead giveaway that you run your business on a shoestring.

Pop 3 accounts are ones that are usually provide by your hosting company that looks after your website. They give you the ability to use your company name in your Emails giving you more credibility and you can usually access them remotely. The main challenges; they aren’t too easy to set up and may not offer nice new features such as and syncing and shared calendars.

Microsoft Exchange server on site. This is widely seen as the best email solution for business and is an option for larger companies who can afford the outlay and maintenance costs of a high class Email server. There are multiple benefits; one gets all of the features of Exchange and Outlook. However, the initial cost of such a solution as well as ongoing costs may mean it places this system beyond the reach of smaller companies.

Hosted Exchange cloud – Microsoft Office 365. A hosted Exchange service gives you all the benefits of an Exchange server onsite but is a much more affordable monthly rented model. This enables small businesses to have all the business class Email features of a higher end solution, but at a fraction of the cost. A big plus! You may be using an older version of hosted Exchange already and want to increase your mailbox size – this service comes with a whopping 50GB of space! Things to bear in mind about this type – it does need an up to date machine, Windows 10.

There are different licences available – they either come with the latest office software or without. This really is the most effective way to get a business class email system. The latest Microsoft 365 even links nicely with cloud marketing suites for easy synchronisation. Microsoft Office 365 can be a bit tricky to set up, you will probably need help from your IT provider to get it installed and running. The latest version of Microsoft 365 can come with a significant suite of applications and One-drive.

So, the key to all this is; to evaluate your current system, understand exactly what you need and then decide on what level of Email you would like for your business.