Email setup?

Hey everyone. So we are considering revamping our email system. Currently we have one person in the office as well as myself 1/2 the time doing owner stuff on the computer. I do email, bids, taxes, etc. Sometimes our customers or vendors will email me for a clarification or something that can be quickly answered, but I may be programming a machine or something else and it will get lost for the day and wont get answered too quickly. Most of the time, it is something that someone else can handle. For example, we get an email. "Hey, your parts are ready for pickup." So rather than getting a UPS label created right away and the part going out today, its taken care of the next day.

So my question is, how is your email setup in your office? Do you let employees have access to your personal work email? Should I set up a catch all type email? Info@ or something like that for both of us to use?

I work by myself but if I had employees, I would most definitely have either a communal email for non-financial/non-personal stuff, or separate emails for them to communicate with so they wouldn't be in mine.
I can see all kinds of bad things by having an employee access everything you, as an owner, see.

if you use microsoft outlook 365, you can set up delegates, so that they too can answer your own email, using their own email account.

I'm not a MS fan, more a unix, linux fan, but I know enough to be dangerous.. actually quite a bit more than that.

so you can set it up so it's your account, and delegate to them, or you can setup generic accounts sales, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc, and delegate from them to whomever you want to have access.

the nice thing about delegates is that if you fire them or they leave, you can control their access, without having to worry about you changing your password.
you just remove the delegation, or delete their account.

Office 365 is pretty easy to use. I would suggest getting an email account with your website domain.

Quadjay said:

Office 365 is pretty easy to use. I would suggest getting an email account with your website domain.

Click to expand...

I can vouch for that.

If you want more business growth opportunity, I would strongly suggest sales@websitedomain so that you don't look small, unless you prefer to stay that way (no argue against that if it's preferred). Setup proper multiple access. Be fairly clear and consistent on the function and operating strategy to the users. Depends a bit on what type of customers you have, don't look too "formal" if you have mostly small & informal customers (unless, again, you want growth opportunity) and vice-versa as well.

The Dude

You're probably not going to like this, but I copy all incoming and outgoing emails to disk. Sometimes that record is useful .... and sometimes you discover things you might want to be on top of.