First and foremost, outsourcing your faxing can save money by offsetting the costs of hardware, software, maintenance and utilities, among other expenses associated with the service. Taking all of these on yourself can add a substantial amount to your operational costs, particularly capital expenses. Monthly costs are typically more manageable and predictable. You also gain the expertise of technicians trained in that service, where hiring the personnel in-house could be much more costly. Outsourcing can be beneficial for businesses of all sizes, but especially small businesses that may not be able to afford large IT departments.
In terms of cloud faxing specifically, you can also eliminate the costs associated with a traditional fax machine. You won’t need to pay for paper, ink, toner, maintenance or a fax machine itself. Cloud faxing removes these expenses and operates from the Internet connection you likely already have.
As far as improving efficiencies goes, cloud faxing creates a much more modern, streamlined infrastructure. It substantially minimizes operational expenses for insurance agencies. ReplixFax, for instance, allows insurance businesses to switch entirely over to digital fax formats, reducing or eliminating the need for fax hardware, as well as the associated costs for paper, toner and maintenance. It eliminates the cumbersome process of sending a fax, the extra time it takes an employee to do so and the security issues that come with traditional faxes. The process is usually as simple as sending an email or accessing a web portal, allowing your employees to spend more time doing what’s important.
The way you fax can influence the other challenges we mentioned, as well.
- Rules and regulations: If you use traditional faxing, you have to be well aware of your records and security procedures. Cloud fax services track and log your transmissions so you have a clear record of all of your faxes. More importantly, they help you deliver documents securely, so you can rest easy knowing they’ve gone to their intended recipient. Fax monitoring services can help here. This service gives you a clear view of how your company communicates and helps you to avoid legal or financial penalties for noncompliance.
- Customer experiences: Fast and simple communications with your clients will help them have a better experience with your company. Errors, downtime and the time it takes to send a fax manually can all slow down an interaction. Cloud faxing makes these transactions smooth, preventing negative experiences and increasing customer satisfaction.
- Old systems: In a similar vein, if you have old, aging IT infrastructure, you’re probably not reaching peak efficiency. Cloud faxing doesn’t require any complicated or expensive hardware and is a more modern approach to communications. The streamlined process can integrate with old systems, run more quickly and fax to businesses that still use legacy machines. Outsourcing your faxing also provides frequently updated equipment and consistent, effective maintenance that may be costly to run on your own.
Other concerns include the sheer volume of faxes that some businesses have. This information has to be handled carefully every step of the way. Some businesses choose traditional faxing for its security and reliability, but a high volume of faxes can make the conventional method a laborious and challenging process. Cloud faxing is more efficient due to its flexibility, convenience and cost-effectiveness. The amount of time employees spend processing faxes on traditional machines can add up. With a quick and co-occurring process, they won’t have to wait through busy signals or shuffle stacks of papers around with a deadline to meet or a client waiting on the other end. You can also say goodbye to traffic jams at the office fax machine. Hundreds of employees in an enterprise can send a fax without interrupting each other.
Finally, security is another substantial component of faxing that can hold some companies back. These businesses might think that faxing is the only way to securely send their data in a way that clients and other organizations can accept. The truth is that there are better options out there. Reliable, legal communication is one reason that people have clung to traditional faxing, but cloud services maintain this status and are just as trustworthy as their predecessors. As an insurance company, you likely have to deal with regulatory compliance from several entities. Of particular concern is HIPAA, which aims to protect sensitive patient information in healthcare environments. Insurance companies often fall under this umbrella and need to comply with secure communications regulations. To do this, many team up with us at Softlinx for our high standards of security. Many in the healthcare industry use ReplixFax, attesting to its 100% HIPAA compliance. One way we do this is through our secure fax delivery system.
Secure fax delivery is somewhat different than traditional fax. This type of transmission is a safer way to send highly sensitive documents between participants. We use a multilevel security system with AES 256-bit encryption to keep your data secure while it is at rest in the cloud, and all transmissions are over an encrypted link via HTTPS/SSL or TLS/SSL for internet or email based submissions of a fax job. Our data center is an SSAE-18 SOC-2 audited hosting facility with multiple data center locations throughout the U.S. that meets the standards set forth by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) for security, availability and compliance. That means we prioritize your sensitive data and know how to keep it protected. You can send any manner of vital documents with cloud fax services, including insurance claims, case reports, benefits claims, applications, processing documentation, adjustments, assessments and more. You get the peace of mind of knowing you are both compliant and keeping your clients safe.
