Why, How and What Of The Mailing Forwarding Services
Understand the concept of email forwarding services.
A mail forwarding service refers to a mailing service that immediately redirects emails that an account receives to another email address, without storing them on the mail servers. This service is useful to avoid lengthy and unmemorable mail addresses at your work or ISP; organizations can create email aliases, in-line with their business domains and names.
The mail forwarding alias has no inbox, and emails are directly sent to existing account inboxes like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. The mail sender’s field remains untouched in the procedure, unlike in remailing.
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Differences Between Regular Emails And Email Forwarding Services
It is necessary to understand the difference between regular emails and forwarded email addresses to understand the mail forwarding service. Regular email addresses possess unique inboxes, where one can access the message through an online inbox, or through an email client application such as Google, Outlook, etc.
On the other hand, forwarding email addresses do not have any actual inbox. They are like redirectors or bouncers of incoming messages to the specified email addresses. An email forwarding account stores nothing on the mail server, but simply redirects all emails and attachments to the specified mail server. Hence, this complete system is known as a mail forwarding service.
Why Email Forwarding Is Needed
The enterprises having domain names related to their business would like to set up email addresses using that domain name. The simplest solution to use these email addresses is mail forwarding. Here are some reasons for using server-based email forwarding.
Integration of multiple addresses into one account
Organizations may need to have different email accounts according to their diverse portfolios. The service is useful in such a scenario because it integrates the various business-related domain-name addresses into one account, thus avoiding any confusions and complexities that may arise by reading from different mail addresses. The virtual email addresses are public-facing email addresses, which the business entities can assign according to their requirements.
Suppose the client is using Gmail as the specified forwarding address, this feature lets the client have all their emails forwarded to this Gmail account and allows them to respond from there only while assuring the identity of the branded domain email address.
Role-based/Function-based email forwarding
To make an enterprise look more established to gain customer trust, one can set up role-based or function-based emails by using the email forwarding service. This can be, in a sense, a credibility-building tool for businesses.
As your organization grows and becomes more extensive, it would be impossible for executives to have a personal look at all those separate business email addresses. In such a scenario, the email forwarding service can be used to set up an efficient system, where all the accounts are managed by forwarding the emails straight to any primary email account. The system also ensures that the right response teams get the related queries, and they can initiate appropriate action. Moreover, the process also eases the workload on employees who are tasked with checking multiple emails.
Replacement receiver
With the email forwarding system, only a specific email ID for an employee has to be set up, to which clients and customers can send their queries. Even if an employee leaves the organization, you don’t have to change the email address to that of the new employee’s. You only need to change the recipient email ID, and your customers can continue sending messages to the same addresses.
How A Mail Forwarding Service Works
The procedure may be different from provider to provider, but they generally follow the steps given below:
- Login to your forwarding service account.
- Open the account manager.
- Open the settings or control panel.
- There will be an option to add forwarders; open it.
- In the “Address” or “Forward from” field, enter the email ID from where you want to forward messages to other accounts.
- In the “Destination” or “Forward to” field, enter the email ID to which you want to forward the messages.
Pros and Cons of Mail Forwarding Services
There are various pros and cons of email forwarding service, as mentioned below.
Pros
- There will only be one generic email address of the company, from where it is easy to make an internal distribution of the emails.
- Since there are providers who provide robust email forwarding services for free, the client can conveniently pick up on these options in case the budget does not allow for premium services. In this way, users get access to an additional and exclusive email program.
- The service is beneficial if one has complicated and long names, which are difficult to spell. Using different mail forwarding addresses, taking into account the possibility of a misspelling, can ensure that emails reach the right inbox, even if people misspell the address.
- The emails can further be transferred from the forwarded email address to multiple clients.
Cons
- In case you go for free options like Gmail, then there may be a concern when sending the messages to different clients. First of all, the email will not look professional as it is not directly associated with the brand name. Secondly, for security concerns, some clients may have problem receiving emails through these options.
- All emails, including spam, received by the forwarding address go to the final recipient. Some ISPs may identify the forwarding address as the source of the spam.
- Some clients may turn to protocol services provided by Gmail, Yahoo, etc. that can retrieve messages, rather than forwarding. Main protocols are named as IMAP, POP3, and Exchange. Since we have listed retrieving as a con, we want the users to be aware that each of the services, whether it’s retrieving or forwarding, has its importance.
The Best Email Forwarding Services
The best email forwarding service allows the users to create personalized email addresses, including their domain names, and forward emails received at these accounts to other email addresses of their choice. Some of the examples of the best email forwarding services are- ForwardMX, ForwardEmail, Mailgun, Proton Mail, Outlook, and Zoho Mail.
The Best Free Email Forwarding Service
Forward Email is one of the best free email forwarding services and is a useful business tool for big as well as small organizations. It can be used for managing emails and working with them at the enterprise’s convenience without the customer knowing how his or her email is handled, for forwarding emails across different domains, and for ensuring excellent customer service in general – all within an efficient mechanism.
Setting Up An Email Forwarding Server
If you’re technically savvy enough, setting up an email forwarding server may also be an option for you. The procedures are not that difficult, and it may be the way to build yourself a personalized, free email forwarding service.
An email forwarding service can prove to be very handy and useful for large, medium-sized, and even small enterprises. Increasingly, server-based email forwarding services are finding a place in the enterprise communication infrastructure.
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