Inbox chaos? Not on our watch.
Keep reading for what you should know about bulletproof business email setups from day one. No, we aren’t talking just labels and folders here.
It’s super tempting to do it. We know it seems easier and like less hassle the moment, but skip the default email that came with your website hosting. (Though while we’re at it, who is hosting your site exactly?) Set up with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 from the start. They are built for anything you could ever want to do as your business grows, and they have the security features you definitely need if you are operating a business that keeps customer information in any form. Plus:
Custom domain: always. (your.name@yourbusiness.co.nz beats “admin123@xtra.co.nz” every day.)
Admin panel: easy to add/remove users, set up aliases, and manage shared mailboxes.
Bonus: Integrated calendars, contacts, and storage mean less clicking around, more getting on with it.
Speaking of security. Getting hacked is absolutely NOT just something that happens to the big boys. They are just the ones you hear about because they have sooooo much flipping data on you and everyone else. According to HoxHunt, small businesses receive the highest rate of targeted malicious emails, with approximately 1 in every 323 emails being malicious. In the U.S., about 41% of small businesses were hit by a cyberattack in 2023. Meanwhile, only 17% of small businesses have cyber insurance resulting in 60% of small businesses that suffer a cyberattack going out of business within six months. (The average cost of recovering from a phishing scam for a small business is approximately $70,000.) Have we blown your mind yet?
Your inbox is a goldmine for hackers (and snoopy ex-employees). Bases you should have covered:
Two-factor authentication on every account, even the team inboxes.
Unique passwords stored in a secure password manager (1Password, LastPass, Bitwarden).
Audit access every quarter. Offboard anyone who leaves. Don’t wait for a “reminder.”
Set alerts for suspicious logins. You want to know before your IT person, whoever that might be, does.
Moving on from the scary stuff!
Have multiple accounts? Make them work for you by setting up separate inboxes for:
Sales (sales@)
Accounts (accounts@)
Support (help@)
The VIP “founder” inbox that never gets lost in the weeds
Set up forwarding rules so the right person sees the right emails and there are no “accidentally missed” client leads. This is also where we do in fact give our brief nod to those files and folders for the absolute ‘non-negotiables’.
Set up rules for invoices, contracts, proposals….whatever, straight to dedicated folders, never cluttering the main inbox.
Colour-coded labels for priorities (urgent, waiting, needs review).
Auto-sort newsletters and social notifications. Newsflash: nobody wants to see those first thing Monday.
Got a team? You need a system.
Shared inbox tools (Gmail delegation, Outlook Shared Mailbox, FrontApp, HelpScout) let you triage, reply, and assign emails, without sharing passwords.
Clear “ownership” rules around who handles what, who drafts and who sends, who gets CC’d, who just gets the summary.
Templates/canned responses for FAQs, standard requests, and the “here’s our process” replies. Saves hours every week.
Now our personal favourite bit.. automations. If you’re still manually confirming appointments or chasing payment reminders, STOP. The standard automated out of office reply is a given these days, but you can set up replies for any number of things and assign rules to them. Integrate your diary invites and follow up reminders at the same time. And connecting your email directly to your CRM is a game changer, we know from experience.
Pulling up the rear to close off this show is a smidge of proactive maintenance. It takes a lot less time than you imagine. Archive or delete those old emails. We can assure you that you do not need 8 years worth of them ‘just in case’. Unless maybe you are a lawyer or doctor. Then back up any of your essential inboxes to the cloud.
Set up your accounts with intention, secure everything, and automate whatever you can. And if you want the setup done for you, you know where to find us. Otherwise, run with this playbook, no charge.
If you want to read more on cybersecurity and small businesses in particular: https://deepstrike.io/blog/cyber-attacks-on-small-businesses