How to Transition Your Business from Traditional Faxing to Online Faxing: A Step-by-Step Guide

In the quest to modernize operations for the digital age, many businesses are leaving traditional fax machines behind in favor of more convenient and efficient online faxing services. Preferred for its ease of use, fast transmission, scalability, and seamless integration with digital workflows, digital faxing continues to grow in popularity as a better alternative to traditional faxing.

If you’re looking to upgrade your tech stack to ensure fast, reliable, and secure communication, transitioning to an online fax service like FAXAGE can be done in a few simple steps.

Step 1: Understanding the Benefits of Online Faxing

Before you make the decision to transition to online faxing, it can be helpful to take an in-depth look at some of the key benefits of these services.

For starters, rather than being tied to a physical machine in the office, users of online faxing services like that they can send and receive faxes with ease via email, website, mobile app, and/or API. Essentially, you can access secure digital faxing services anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Since online fax services are more accessible and work seamlessly with various file formats, teams can enjoy time-savings and increased productivity as they’re able to quickly transmit communications right from their computer or smartphone. Plus, online faxing is compatible with fax machines. So, even if you need to exchange faxes with someone who still uses traditional faxing, you won’t have to worry about business disruptions.

In addition, Internet faxing plans tend to be much more cost-effective than what it costs to purchase and maintain a traditional fax machine. Teams can typically reduce spending on toner, ink, and paper when switching to online faxing, as documents aren’t automatically printed off upon receipt like with the traditional method. For this reason, online faxing is also a more eco-friendly option, helping teams reduce paper and energy consumption.

Step 2: Evaluating and Choosing the Right Online Fax Service

When you’re ready to make the transition to Internet faxing, you should evaluate a few providers to ensure you find the right one for your needs and budget. Each company will have its own criteria for qualifying internet faxing services; however, some of the main factors you may want to consider include features, security, and pricing.

Online Faxing Features

These are some of the top features to look for in an online faxing service:

• Ease of Use: Prioritize services that have a user-friendly interface and allow for quick and easy navigation.
• Security: Look for providers that offer standard security options, like end-to-end encryption for all documents.
• Efficiency: Assess the kind of speed and scalability that a provider promises for its online faxing service.
• Industry-Specific Features: Businesses that operate in the legal, healthcare, education, and financial sectors may require unique features to support regulatory compliance
• Integrations: Inquire about the supported third-party integrations a provider offers to ensure easy access to stored documents in platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox.
• Notifications: Check to see if the provider offers real-time updates on fax status to support transparency.
• Customer service: Review the customer support options and team availability, such as email, chat, phone, etc.

As the value leader in Internet fax services, FAXAGE offers each of these features and more. Ideal for small to medium businesses or home office use, FAXAGE frees you from the complexity of managing physical fax machines and phone lines, giving you the independence to receive and send faxes from any location.

Online Faxing Security

In addition to the above features, all FAXAGE fax service plans include robust security capabilities, ensuring compliance and confidentiality when faxing sensitive documents and information. This includes multiple security and encryption options, such as:

• SSL/TLS encryption for all web and API-based faxing
• SSL/TLS email transport encryption
• SSL/TLS secured Print to Fax print driver
• SSL/TLS secured Fax App for iOS and Android
• Password-protected incoming fax PDFs
• PGP support for email fax sending and receiving
• Email link for secure download of incoming faxes
• HIPAA compliance standard
• Full Internet Fax System Auditing

Online Faxing Plans and Pricing

You should also look for a provider that offers flexible plans to fit your faxing needs and budget. At FAXAGE, we’re proud to offer high-performance plans at affordable rates. All of our plans include unlimited users and online storage. Plans start as low as $3.49/month and can scale up to thousands of fax numbers and millions of faxes per month from just one account. FAXAGE plans include:

Business Plans

• Unlimited Inbound Plan: $19.95/month, best for heavy inbound use
• Small Office Plan: $29.95/month, best for balanced use
• Toll-Free 1500: $19.95/month, best toll-free value

Individual Plans

• Lite Plan: $3.49/month, best for occasional use
• Professional Plan: $7.95/month, best for moderate use

High Volume Plans

• Local Volume Plan: $64.95/month, includes a local number
• Toll-Free Volume Plan: $64.95/month, best for heavy inbound use

Carrier Plans

• Wholesale pricing structure based on the number of concurrent outgoing channels required, number of fax DIDs required, and actual minute usage
• $15/month/concurrent outgoing channel
• $2/month/DID
• $0.023/minute for all inbound/outbound traffic

Step 3: Preparing for the Transition

After choosing an online faxing provider, you must prepare your business and staff to ensure a smooth transition. Don’t be hasty about the transition, but take your time to develop a solid migration plan that proactively addresses any roadblocks you might encounter.

To mitigate staff resistance to the change, clearly communicate the benefits of the online faxing service compared to traditional faxing. Pose the new system as a convenient tool that will help them more easily send and receive faxes from the devices they already use.

This communication shouldn’t be all one-sided. Offer open dialogue, allowing team members to voice their concerns about the change while reaffirming staff that you’ll provide adequate training and support during the transition. It can also be useful to designate a point person as the go-to for any questions or concerns as they begin using the new service.

The good news is that companies like FAXAGE offer quality customer service for teams that need assistance, guidance, and resources during the transition period.

Step 4: Onboarding Your Employees

The final step is to get employees onboarded to the new system. Teams will need to develop proper training programs to empower staff members to feel comfortable using the service on their own.

This might include holding live practice sessions and demonstrations to walk users through how to set up an account and send a fax online. For remote or hybrid teams, it may be more useful to make a screen recording of how to use the system as self-guided training. Employees will be able to consult the video in the future when they have questions about the process or how to access certain features.

Getting started with a new service always comes with some challenges. However, proper training can help employees embrace online faxing and address any concerns or questions proactively. In other words, the more comfortable they feel navigating the platform on their own, the more likely they are to successfully adopt the system.

When using a service like FAXAGE, companies have access to a wide range of online resources and tutorials on how to use the system. This makes it easier for users to access troubleshooting help for common problems or contact the service provider directly for support on more complex issues.

Migrating Contacts and Data

Many businesses have been using traditional fax machines for decades. Thus, you may have a large volume of contacts and other important information stored on these machines that you’ll need to transfer to the online service.

Through FAXAGE, users can securely transfer existing contacts to the new system. We’ve made it easy to securely import data into FAXAGE, helping to ease the administrative burden of the migration from traditional to online faxing.

Follow the proper steps to export contacts and documents from your current fax provider, then import the file into your FAXAGE account.

Ensuring a Seamless Transition

Making a big change, like transitioning from traditional to online faxing, can come with certain challenges. However, with the proper preparation and team communication, you can ensure a seamless transition with minimal business disruption. Here are some expert tips and best practices for a successful migration:

• Be realistic about the timeline: The transition from traditional to online faxing won’t happen overnight. Give yourself plenty of time for vendor assessment, employee training, and integration with existing systems to ensure everyone on the team is comfortable with the system.
• Make a contingency plan: Even with the best planning, unexpected situations can arise. As a backup during the transition, keep your traditional faxing system in operation. This will help you avoid disruptions in communications if you’re facing temporary technical difficulties with your online service.
• Test out the new system: Before deploying the new system across the organization, send small test faxes internally to ensure it’s working properly.
• Lean on customer support: If you’re transitioning to an online fax plan with FAXAGE, you can contact our support team over the phone during regular business hours or via email 24/7. We’re here to help you make the transition simple and troubleshoot any technical issues you may face as you begin using the service.

Conclusion

Despite any temporary challenges, transitioning to an online faxing service is a strategic business move that will help your company evolve and grow in the digital age. From better efficiency and sustainability to on-the-go convenience, Internet faxing services enable secure and convenient communication between clients, remote teams, business partners, and more.

Choosing a leading provider like FAXAGE makes the entire transition process much easier. With flexible plans to fit your business needs and budget and a friendly customer service team to aid your team in the transition, FAXAGE is dedicated to helping you create a more user-friendly fax environment.

Explore FAXAGE as your online faxing solution and give your team a better way to fax.