Many entrepreneurs have nowhere near enough money to rent or buy physical locations for their businesses. Instead, the vast majority of modern startups are digital ones. You hardly need any resources or funds to build your own online store–you just need a web-building platform and a small amount of seed money.
However, in business, a physical location is needed to send or receive mail. Did you know that you don’t have to own the location mail arrives at or is sent from, though? It is entirely possible to rent a mailbox. This post explores this topic in more detail and explains the benefits of using a digital mailbox service.
Professional Address
The main benefit of using a digital mailbox service is that it will give you a professional address. Your own professional address to receive digital mail can be a fantastic way to improve your business’s reputation and give it a boost in the eyes of customers. This is because a mailbox in a large town or city makes your business look a lot more established than it is. The average person has no idea digital mailboxes even exist, so they are naturally going to assume your mailing address is your business’s brick-and-mortar location.
In terms of finding a digital mailbox service, make sure you shop around and find one with good reviews. A service’s reviews will tell you a lot about them and help you to determine whether they are the right choice for you or not, so make sure you read them.
More Privacy
When you run a customer-facing business, you are bound to encounter customers who are a little odd or who are very difficult to deal with. Such customers can be a nightmare to do business with, especially if you get on their bad side. The last thing you want is obsessive customers harassing you at your home or office, which is why a digital mailbox service can give you more privacy. Customers will only have that one address, so if they have complaints or mail to send to you, they will have no option but to send it there, and you don’t have to worry about them turning up at your house.
If you want to add an extra layer of privacy to your business’s operations, scrub your address from the internet. There are a number of services that will do this for you, so all you have to do is get in touch with one and ask them to help you.
Package Forwarding
When you partner with a digital mailbox service, they can forward mail from your mailbox to your office or your house. This means you don’t have to worry about physically visiting your mailbox’s location and collecting it, although you can do this if you want to. Make sure the forwarding address you give to the mailbox company is one you actively monitor, so you can be in to receive parcels or letters. Some mailbox services charge fees to customers whose mail is returned back to them.
For forwarding parcels, you need to make sure that as well as monitoring mailboxes, you give a correct address. Getting the address wrong can lead to your digital mailbox partner sending mail to the wrong address, which may lead to it getting lost, or to it getting returned.
24-Hour Mail Access
When you partner with a digital mail service, you get to enjoy 24-hour mail access. This means that if you ever need to view your mail, you can log into your online account and view scanned copies of it. Bear in mind that if you are going to partner with a digital mailbox service, you need to first conduct extensive research and find one that takes data privacy very seriously. The company you ultimately work with should have proper licenses and permits, so you don’t have to worry about them misusing your mail or leaking sensitive customer or employee information.
There are some letters you cannot legally have scanned, such as those that contain sensitive information. Make sure you inform the mailbox service you work with when mail of this kind comes in, so they don’t open it and upload it for you. Such mail should always be forwarded and opened in person.
Fraud Protection
The next benefit worth mentioning is fraud protection. When you work with a digital mailbox service, you get to enjoy much greater security. Mail theft has never been more common than it is today. If mail is delivered to your home or business and you are not there to receive it, it could get left outside. If it does, there is a chance that it could get stolen. When you work with a digital mailbox service, you never have to worry about mail going missing, because there will always be somebody there to receive it.
Make sure the company you partner with takes a serious attitude toward security and has guards working around the clock to safeguard your mail. You can find out how seriously a digital mailbox service takes its security by reading their ‘About us’ page, visiting their location yourself, or sending an email to them.
Regulatory Compliance
Finally, when you partner with a digital mailbox service, you don’t ever have to worry about breaching data privacy regulations. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to keep mail safe, so customer and employee data is protected. If you take shortcuts or adopt a casual attitude toward your business’s mail, you could end up having fines and penalties issued. Fines and penalties can be very expensive, not to mention damage your business’s reputation with employees and even regulatory commissions.
Customers and employees like to know their data is being taken care of. If you do not take the data contained within letters seriously, you are showing employees and customers you do not take their security very seriously, which will lead to them going elsewhere in search of employment and business.
Do you run a business? If so, you need a mailing address. A mailing address gives customers and clients somewhere to send correspondence and can improve your business’s reputation. Use the guidance given above to find the right digital mailing service for you, and consider the other points made so you can use your mailbox effectively.
