Internet Fax Buying Guide

Internet Fax Is Easy! Send and receive faxes via email. Anytime. Anywhere. An Internet Fax Service is Paperless, Mobile, Convenient and Economical. Quick Fax Guide Menu:

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Internet Fax Buying Guide:

Questions You MUST Ask Before
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................................................. Still not sure about Internet Fax or which email Fax Service to use? Need more information about online faxing? Just enter your email to receive follow-up information on Internet Fax.

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“We recommend Faxage: of the services compatible with Chronicle, it has the best pricing, the best performance of those tested, and the most timely responses to requests for help (within an hour).” Chronicle Technologies. Press Release January 05, 2008

Internet Fax Buying Guide

What You Need To Know? Before signing up for any Internet fax service provider there are some very important questions you should ask or have the answers to before you sign on the dotted line. Keep in mind, acquiring a fax number and service for your business or company should have your full attention because this is usually a long-term service and doing your homework now can save you significant money over the long haul. More importantly, choosing the right fax service provider can save you from some serious problems and headaches down the road. Like any business service, you must make sure you get a reliable service with good support that is reachable at all hours of the day or night, a quality service that will enhance your business and not hinder it. With this in mind, here are some basic questions you should be asking about the Internet fax service provider you're considering using. Questions on the Company, Service and Support: Who owns the company? How long have they been operating? What is their client base or how many customers 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. Find out how long they have been operating and find out what their support is like. One good source of information on the different companies is online fax forums. Check these to see what the support is like for a company and/or if there are any problems with using a particular fax company. Many fax service providers have their own forums... go in and check how well questions are answered and how quickly problems are solved. You can even monitor these forums over a few days just to see how quickly problems are solved and how quickly troubleshooting issues are dealt with. Check and ask around to see if you can find actual users and customers of a particular fax service. There is nothing as good as first-hand experience and advice when choosing a service. Get their honest opinions and ratings of your chosen fax service provider. 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. Questions on your New Fax Number: Check to see what type of fax number is supplied by the fax provider - local number with your same area code? Toll-free number? Can you get inbound numbers in a different country in case you want to create a virtual presence there? Does the fax provider recycle old fax numbers? On rare occasions that 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 thru your number. Questions on the Transmission of Faxes: How do I send faxes? How do I use the "email to fax" - the exact procedure for your chosen fax provider? Is there a desktop or email application I can use to send and receive faxes? Some fax providers have desktop or email applications where you simply click a fax icon to send your faxes. Is there an online interface or site where I can send and receive my faxes? Can I store my faxes online? If so, how much disc space is provided? Can I track the process of my faxes online? 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. Sometimes, a fax provider will receive faxes in many different formats but you can only send faxes in certain formats - check with the provider first before you sign up for their service. 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. Many top brand companies do offer this encryption system so you can make sure all your faxes are emailed in an encrypted format. Questions on 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. Along those same lines, you should consider 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 on the Costs of Faxing: Perhaps the most important questions you have to ask concerns the cost or price of your online faxing. Is there a set-up cost? 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? Is the fax service a yearly subscription? Is it a monthly subscription? How many faxes can you send and/or receive each month with your monthly subscription? The individual 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. If I go over my limit, what are the costs of sending faxes? Receiving faxes? What are your provider's international fax rates? You will usually pay more for these types of faxes. Remember, as 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. In figuring out the costs of your Internet faxing, you also have to remember, with online faxing you won't have the cost of a fax machine, or the cost of a second phone line. And lastly, you won't have to pay ink, toner and paper costs. Overall, Internet faxing is a very 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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