Faxing is essential for your business as it enables you to transmit legal documents and other company data. Faxes serve as an audit trail, which helps keep your company compliant with bookkeeping and legal requirements.
However, if you’re still using traditional fax machines, it can be costly and affect productivity. You pay high expenses for paper consumption, especially if an employee sends a fax to the wrong number. Workers also spend lost time sending and receiving faxes, especially with long fax lines. Most importantly, these machines don’t have protection, meaning anyone can read the content in a fax. In other words, traditional faxing makes businesses vulnerable to security threats while slowing down operations. This is why most companies are now investing in digital faxing systems. Â
What Can An Online Fax System Do?
The best fax app offers countless capabilities, such as:Â
- No need to buy and maintain fax machines and expensive ink cartridges.
- You can send and receive messages without purchasing a separate phone line.
- You can view messages through a mobile device.
- It keeps your data secure from unauthorized users.
This list only shows that online faxing is more secure and efficient.Â
How Online Faxing Systems Help Businesses
Now, how does it help your business? The following are the four benefits of online faxing systems:
1. It Boosts ProductivityÂ
When employees have to send and receive faxes using fax machines, they become less productive. For instance, a sales representative might need to wait in line to communicate with a customer to collect their bank information. However, this can be time-consuming and affects lead generation. Instead of catering to multiple leads simultaneously, the prospects must wait for their turn, resulting in lost sales opportunities.
Alternatively, an online fax system allows your sales rep to streamline this process. Customers can easily send their encrypted faxes through email or cloud storage. This means that the sales rep can process their payment information immediately and manage leads. This way, they can ensure customer satisfaction while closing deals in a shorter period.
Aside from that, digital faxing is helpful for recordkeeping. Your accountants and executives can modify the faxes anytime, anywhere, even during a holiday or a corporate trip. Instead of waiting for confirmation, employees are focusing on revenue-generating activities.Â
2. It Offers Better Data Protection Â
There are industry standards that require businesses to prioritize data privacy. These include the HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR. This means the entrepreneurs have to take additional actions to protect customer data.
But if you still use faxing machines, your faxes are vulnerable to data breaches and cyber-attacks. If hackers target your files, you’ll receive a legal reprimand of costly fines or a temporary operation ban. If this happens often, how can consumers trust your company when they know that you don’t find their data valuable?
But when you use an online fax service, you can rest assured that your faxes are confidential. You can even strengthen security measures by adding data encryption on all faxes. This way, no one can intercept or modify the file without leaving a record, which supports transparency. In addition, the fax only becomes accessible once it reaches the recipient. Then, they’ll use their strong password for their account. This added fax security makes your brand more trustworthy to consumers and business partners.Â
3. It Saves Storage SpaceÂ
Implementing fax machines requires space, especially if you have one in every office or building floor. In addition, you’ll have to store all outdated faxes, which use a lot of storage space.
But with online faxes, you can eliminate the need for storage space. You store it in the app and access the files when needed. However, check the maximum storage the vendor offers because some can save faxes permanently while others don’t. If the digital faxing software doesn’t, consider cloud storage for additional storage capacity and file backup. Â
4. It Reduces Paper Consumption Â
You have to pay for long-distance costs and fax machine maintenance with traditional faxes. Aside from that, employees encounter paper jams and streaks on printouts, which makes printing prone to error. In short, they have to re-print the faxes, so you must buy more paper. This, in turn, translates to higher paper consumption and carbon footprint.
But with digital faxing, you save yourself from these costs. Instead of printing out faxes, send them via email or upload them directly onto your cloud hosting server. This means that there’ll be zero paper jams and printing costs.Â
Additionally, this cost-effective option also makes your business eco-friendlier. When stakeholders know you actively promote sustainability practices through online faxing, they support your company more. This is because of its commitment to environmental consciousness.
Summing It Up
Overall, online faxing systems have many advantages as mentioned in this article. First, you save money on printing costs and paper usage. Then, you boost team productivity since your employees can access and modify faxes anytime with mobile devices. And lastly, you can encrypt the faxes before sending them to the recipient to revoke access from unauthorized parties. These benefits all help direct your company toward growth and success.