Why I Don’t Manage Email Accounts

For the first few years of hosting domains at BeBizzy Consulting I issued each customer one email address, with more available for additional cost. 

I quickly realized this was a mistake, as well over 50% of my support issues were getting email to work correctly instead of building and maintaining the websites I currently host.

There is so much to manage when hosting your own email, or email for other companies. Domains zone files, uptime, security, blacklist management, password issues, email setup on a wide variety of applications and platforms, contact lists, webmail… my head hurts just thinking about it.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out there were services that were not only inexpensive, but WAY better at keeping email flowing and basically always working. The first considerations were Office 365 either through a provider, Microsoft itself, or a domain registrar like GoDaddy, Zoho mail or another CRM as a host, or just running your own email server on a spare server or computer lying around.

Or better yet, use Gsuite by Google. Gsuite is just a more full-featured Gmail.

https://gsuite.google.com/

The 10 Great Reasons to Use GSuite

1. You get an email address at your business name
   • You can get more at additional cost, or just use aliases to create more emails all going to the same inbox.
2. Relatively east to set up.
   • Create the account, verify the domain with a file upload or DNS change, and adjust the MX zones with your registrar or hosting company.
   • You can easily upload a contact list, or even import email from another provider if some pre-work is done correctly.
3. Total control of the environment through the admin console. Turn on/off apps, access, virtually anything for any users.
4. You can get your email from virtually anywhere, just get an internet connection. I get my email from my desktop, a Surface laptop I carry to meetings, Chromebook, smartphone, browser, it doesn’t matter. In regards to apps and programs, there are tons of great smartphone and Windows/Mac apps that will get email, especially if you use Gmail/Gsuite. I happen to use Outlook because I needed other Office products for a couple other clients who needed pivot tables and more.
5. 24/7 world class support via chat, email or phone. If you are a paid Gsuite user you can get help any time, and pretty much anywhere.
6. 2FA – Two Factor Authentication to protect your accounts and admin info. Have a code saved on a single mobile device or acknowledge a login. Enter a code from Google Authenticator or a text message. It’s all there automatically to protect your personal data.
7. The Google Docs office suite works well with Microsoft Office products like Word, Excel and Outlook. Not for advanced stuff like pivot tables and special formatting, but basic spreadsheets and documents are easily read, created and shared in Google Docs.
8. Access to a wide selection of apps to use across your environment including calendars, project management, CRM,  Google Hangout communication and more!
9. The Google Drive file sharing, collaboration and other benefits – Need to collaborate on a spreadsheet or presentation? Or need access to a directory with all the same images? Google Drive makes this easy, and cheap compared to Dropbox and other services.
10. It always works. I’ve had my Gsuite accounts for well over five years, and I can think of maybe twice where the mail was down for minutes, not hours or days. It just works.

A few things to be aware of when using a service like Gsuite

1. As with any email server (or any other server for that matter), security is always an issue. Since Gsuite is accessible virtually everywhere, be cautious about using good passwords, two-factor authentication (2FA), recovery email address and other measures to make sure no-one is getting in or administering your email.
2. Speaking of being available everywhere… you and your employees will be getting at email from pretty much anywhere you can think of. Their phones, their laptops, their tablets, friend’s computers, public devices and unprotected networks. Browsers will ask to save passwords and inevitably will be saved on unintended devices. Have some policies and measures set up to handle these instances to change passwords, delete “approved” devices and more to keep everything safe.
3. If you don’t want everyone to have access to all tools and apps in the Gsuite system it will take a bit to set up and manage. It’s still easier than the old days of managing an Enterprise server.

Are you using, or thinking of using GSuite? Send your comments to me @BeBizzy on Twitter!