Email is a great way to keep in contact with both old clients and potential new clients. It does not cost you anything to send or receive email, and it is delivered instantly. However, there are still things that you may not know about email.
You may already have an email account, possibly through a free email service, such as Gmail, Hotmail or YahooMail. They all give you ability to send receive messages from people, through a website interface and hence are accessible from any Internet-connected computer. However, as perceived professionalism goes, these are at the bottom of the ladder.
You may otherwise be using an email account that your ISP (such as BigPond, iiNet and OptusNet) has given you. These types of accounts are also (usually) free, however you would lose your address if you switched to another ISP. So it is not a good idea to build business relationships using such emails accounts.
Private email accounts are attached to your own domain name (such as james@myphysioplace.com.au). As long as you keep your domain name, you get to keep your email address, regardless of where you move or who your ISP or website provider is. But arguably the biggest advantage of having private email address is the professionalism and credibility it provides.
When you sign up for our physiotherapy website services, we will help you select and register a domain name (if you don’t already have one). Then we can set up as many private email accounts as you need. We will also help you set up your email software on your computers, such as Outlook – or you may opt to use our web-based email system, similar in operation to Hotmail so you can access your emails from anywhere.
So when you get your private email account, tell everyone to use that and phase out your Hotmail or BigPond for business email communications.