Everyone in business is concerned about e-mail and network security. Rightly so.
Did you ever consider that this concern could be costing you business?
One of the ways that networks are secured is to put very aggressive e-mail scanning and anti-spam tools in place. No-one likes spam. Filtering your e-mail to avoid unnecessary e-mail is a great tool.
But, be cautious in how you set this up. Here's a true story.
One of our in-house client service reps was dealing with a client on a new service we are introducing. The client e-mailed to say they were interested in the service and could we send them additional information. Our client service person sent a reply e-mail with a link to the information so they could proceed. The client did not receive the e-mail. Our rep altered the e-mail and sent it again. Still no receipt.
So when a followup phone call was made it was decided that the information would have to be faxed to the client. Problem solved? Not really. Our rep enquired further and it turns out this is a very frequent case with this client's office and the employees are now having to have e-mails sent to their personal e-mail accounts to get around the company filters.
What is the result of this silly process?
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Since personal e-mails are now being used the information that was being filtered out is getting through anyway.
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The aggressive spam filters are stopping important, legitimate correspondence from getting to employees.
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Employees are increasingly frustrated about getting their information.
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Extra time is used to clear the communication backlog.
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Your company looks hard to deal with and perhaps even old fashioned.
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Customers can be getting frustrated at lack of response and going to competitors.
Security and spam filtering is important. Excessive or aggessive filtering can be stopping important information from reaching your employees.
Think of the consequences of a key message from a client not getting through and you not knowing. You fail to respond to the client because the message is in your spam box or worse the corporate spam box, (where the IT resources might not know all of the clients who should be white listed,) and no one realizes there is an issue. The client might simply contact a competitor that is more responsive.
You loose the business! Take a look at your systems and ask you employrees if this is happening to you.
How aggressive are your spam filters? Do people complain about not being able to reach you? Are you forced to revert to fax to get document attachments transmitted?
Lee K
