When we think about sending emails, we envision a high tech and complex communications system which doesn’t leave a physical trace. This modern day means of sending messages, the natural progression of traditional letter sending, would beggar belief to those who worked in the business world only a single generation ago, such a game changer that it is.
With no need for paper, ink, toner or printers, receiving an email is a far cry from what business people had to go through when sending and receiving messages via email’s paper-based ancestors. By contrast, what typically comes to mind when thinking about sending faxes is quite the opposite of the streamlined and efficient process that is sending a simple email message. Here, we stereotypically think of a slow and laborious process, involving all sorts of time, labour and physical resources.
When faxing, office workers would traditionally have to check their fax machine for blockages, while ensuring that the signal is not too busy, before sending a simple document. If they neglected to do any of these monotonous tasks, catastrophe could strike in the form of a jammed machine, causing frustrating delays, reduced productivity and costing the company valuable money and resources in terms of man hours.
Similarly, when receiving a fax message, office workers would need to ensure that their machine was switched on at the anticipated time of the message’s arrival, as well as making sure that the machine was fully stocked with enough ink, toner and paper to successfully print out the physical document. In the case of particularly large files, this could prove to be a tricky task, involving swift paper switches mid print out.
Surely there must be a better way to send faxes than relying on such outdated fax servers?
Are Faxes Still Useful in the Modern Work Environment?
While, at a glance, one might be tempted to think that the humble faxing service is a goner, outcompeted to the point of being obsolete by its sleeker, more modern cousin. It would be tempting to think that email is the natural replacement of the fax message. While it has certainly eaten into faxing’s share of the messaging market, there is still plenty of room for both. In fact, the two can, and must often be, used in tandem with each other.
While most people think that an email is actually ‘an internet fax’, this is not really the case. What many don’t realise is that there are several legal benefits associated with faxing which email does not enjoy. To that end, it is still essential that the modern business maintains a healthy fax-based communications infrastructure in order to comply with various legal requirements. That’s where faxing and email can work together…
How to Send a Fax Via Email
Nowadays, it is possible to send a fax message through the medium of email, combining the quick efficiency of the latter with the security and reliability of the former.
With eFax’s advanced fax by email service, sending your faxes quickly and securely over the internet couldn’t be a whole lot easier. All you have to do is attach the files (you can add up to 10 in one go) which you wish to send as a secure fax to an email message. Then, in the “To:” section, simply input your intended recipient’s registered fax number (or select them from your pre-existing list of contacts in your eFax account) and hit the send button – it really is that simple!
In a matter of moments (the same length of time which it takes to receive an email message), your recipient will receive the fax documents in their fax machine, just like they would have had you sent your fax the old-fashioned way. Even if their fax machine is switched off or experiencing a period of busy signal when you are sending your message, the eFax system is smart enough to understand this, and will continuously re-attempt communication until your message is properly delivered, meaning you’ll never again have to worry about your valuable documents getting ‘lost in transition’.
A business solution as simple as it is complex, faxing by email is a 21st Century solution to a very old office problem which eFax are more than happy to provide. Why not sign up for our no obligation Free Internet Faxing Trial to see what eFax can do for you?