Before acquiring any Internet Fax service you must ask some
pertinent questions before you sign on the dotted line.
Remember, getting a fax number and service for your
business or company should have your full attention because
this is a long-term service and doing your homework now can
save you significant money over the long haul.
Besides, picking the RIGHT fax service provider will help
you avoid serious problems/headaches down the road. More
importantly, like any business service you must make doubly
sure you get a high quality reliable service that will
enhance your business and not hinder it.
So with these concerns in mind, here are some basic
questions you should ask before buying any Internet fax
service.
* Questions About The Company
Who owns the company? How long have they been operating?
How many customers/clients do they have? How good is their
support? Basically, you want to do some research on the
Internet fax company you're thinking about using. Check out
the company's history by doing a BBB search to see if there
are any major complaints about the company or service.
Check to see if there's a trial period and if there is a
30-day money-back guarantee if things don't work out. Most
legitimate fax companies provide this feature.
Find out how long they have been operating and find out
what their support is like? Check out the online fax forums
to see how the different companies are rated? What problems
are discussed? Check these forums to see what the support
is like for a company and/or if there are any problems with
using a particular fax company.
Keep in mind, many fax service providers have their own
forums... check these to see how well questions are
answered and how quickly problems are solved. You can even
monitor these forums for a few days just to see how quickly
problems are dealt with?
Remember to ask around to see if you can find actual users
of a particular fax service, there is nothing as good as
first-hand experience and advice when choosing a service.
MicroSoft's Office Marketplace is a good place to start.
* Questions About Your New Fax Number:
First, you will want to check to see what type of fax
number is supplied by the fax provider - local number with
your same area code or a Toll-free number? Can you get
inbound numbers in a different country in case you want to
create a virtual presence there?
Check to see if a fax provider recycles old fax numbers? On
rare occasions this could present a problem with you
receiving someone else's faxes. Keep this in mind if you
discontinue your fax number, especially if you were
receiving sensitive faxes through your number.
* Questions About The Transmission of Faxes:
How do I send faxes? You want to know the exact procedure
for your chosen fax provider? Is there a desktop or email
application I can use to send and receive faxes? Does it
work with Windows Applications?
Is there an online interface or site where I can send and
receive my faxes? (Most fax services have this.) Can I
store my faxes online? If so, how much disc space is
provided and how long before my faxes are deleted? Can I
track the process of my faxes online? Can I track how much
each fax costs?
What attachment file formats are used by your prospective
fax provider? Most use the TIFF (Tagged Image File) format
but other popular ones are Acrobat PDF, JPEG/JPG and GIF.
If you have or use a different format, check with the
provider to see if they can handle it.
Can you change your email address to where your faxes are
sent? Can you have multiple email addresses? Do you have
control over your fax identifier (CSID) for outbound faxes?
The CSID is used to identify the sender of the fax and is a
legal requirement in many locations.
Finally, if security is a real concern, you must ask
whether or not your fax provider can send encrypted/signed
email? Encryption ensures only you and the receiver sees
your faxes. Can your faxes be sent and received via email
with PGP encryption?
* Questions About Fax Broadcasting:
Does your fax provider offer Fax Broadcasting - sending the
same fax to hundreds or thousands of recipients? This is
useful in a business setting for such things as
Newsletters, Press Releases, Special Sales or Deals - not
to be confused with Junk Faxes, which is similar to email
Spam!
If you or your company does a lot of legitimate faxing, you
must check to see if your fax provider is completely
scalable to meet your company's growing faxing needs? Can
you easily get multiple fax numbers for different
departments or agents? Can it handle high volumes on short
notice?
* Questions About The Costs of Faxing:
Perhaps the most important questions you have to ask
concerns the cost or price of your online faxing. Are there
any set-up costs? Are there any hidden fees? Is there a
trial version you can start with? Is there a money-back
guarantee if you're not satisfied with the service?
Fax services are paid for by subscriptions - you must check
to see if it's a yearly or monthly subscription? Most
companies give you an option and if you buy an annual
subscription, you usually get a discount - check this?
Regardless of how you pay, you must check how many faxes
can you send and/or receive each month with your
subscription? Fax companies all have different plans and
fees... so it pays to shop around... most services go for
around $10-$15 a month. Heavier volume faxing will be more
expensive. Also check to see if there is custom pricing for
companies?
What are your provider's international fax rates? This is
something you should really check out as you will have to
pay more for these types of faxes. If I go over my limit,
what are the costs of sending faxes? Receiving faxes?
Remember, as a general rule of thumb, page calculations are
done based on fax time with the 60-second per page limit as
standard. Most faxes are less than 40 seconds, but faxes
with large graphics may be counted as two or more pages.
Some fax providers base their fax rates on a per/minute
fee... 5 cents a minute.
When considering the costs of your Internet faxing, you
have to remember, with online faxing you won't have the
cost of a fax machine, or the cost of a second phone line.
Plus, you won't have to pay ink, toner and paper costs.
Overall, Internet faxing is a good viable alternative to
the old fax machine. It offers some very distinct
advantages because it is completely mobile, you can send
your faxes anytime, anywhere. And since it is computer and
Internet based, it can be much more efficient than the old
fax machine.
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For more information on Internet Fax Services & Pricing try
this handy online Fax Comparison Guide:
http://www.onlinefaxguide.com
Or why not grab a copy of this convenient Fax Guide as it
contains all the information you need on choosing an
Internet Fax service:
http://www.internetfaxguide.org
Titus Hoskins 2008. This article may be freely distributed
if this resource box stays attached.
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