Choosing the right virtual mailbox service for you and your business is an overwhelming task with many factors and features to consider before signing up. We have it covered with the ultimate checklist when buying a virtual mailbox for small businesses.
Why Do People Get a Virtual Mailbox?
It is a particularly cost-effective tool to different people for various reasons. You may be a freelancer looking to set-up a professional address without compromising your home address, or a start-up company who is not willing to invest a lot of money on an office lease just yet, or an expat working across two locations.
It’s the simplest way to access your mail digitally from any location – virtual mailbox services offer mail scanning and forwarding services to your preferred destination.
How to get a virtual mailbox?
For virtual mailbox UK, the first step is to sign up to a virtual mailing service online. Compare and select all plans offered – whether they are basic or premium offers. Once you’ve chosen the right monthly plan for your business you may confirm your order. Complete the set of identity verification protocols to acquire your personal virtual mailing address and you now have access to all your posts from the mail forwarding service through their mailing app.
Factors you should consider while buying a Virtual Mailbox: The Checklist
- Mail Security and Data Protection
The first factor to consider is of course mail security and data protection. Does the digital mailroom platform address security vulnerabilities and compliance risks by applying security controls?
The good news is that mail scanning services are more secure than email and paper mail. See the fine print on a company’s data protection terms and conditions. With Exela's Digital Mailroom – you are provided with full audit trails, chain of custody tracking, and better visibility into the complete document lifecycle.
- Print and Mailing Offers
Does the mail forwarding rental offer scanning, printing, and physical delivery? A document’s life-cycle is often not as straightforward as printing and sending – there are various revisions and signature requests conducted before the final copy is physically sent.
The best mail forwarding services offer signing, editing, and in-house printing functions useful for important circumstances or even for long-term offsite print & mail services.
It’s important to have the convenience to manage the end-process of your most crucial mail without worrying about physically revising or signing them.
- What are the storage and delivery limitations?
When it comes to having a centralized postal address, consider the limitations of your mail storage digitally and physically. Physical mail pertains to posts that are unscannable such as packages, magazines, or books. How long does your virtual mailbox rental allow storage before forwarding delivery to your location?
On the other hand, how much and how long does your digital cloud mail store for your plan?
- Widely accessible and manageable mail
There are other limitations such as supported devices. Depending on the digital mailbox service – scanning and managing the latest mail should be seamlessly accessible with any ios or android device.
Notably, who has access to them and how employees and stakeholders can interact with them is a great feature to look for. The advanced digital services can do this by creating tiered roles or groups within the document management system, granting each group different levels of access to confidential or protected documents.
- Supported cities
One of the advantages of digital mailrooms is having the freedom to choose the mail to shred, scan, and deliver. While digitized mail is hassle-free and convenient, there’s always physical packages that are unscannable and need to be delivered to your door-step.
Last but not certainly the least, knowing which cities your mail forwarding service caters physical delivery to is worth noting. Select mail forwarding services cater to limited cities, while others offer nation-wide shipping.
Who Uses a Virtual Mailbox and Why Do They Get Virtual Mailboxes?
Small Business Owner
Setting up a virtual mailbox is valuable for small business owners looking for a professional business address without committing to office rentals. It is the best solution to keep incoming mail from important business dealings centralized and separate from their home addresses – all while displaying a physical address to customers and stakeholders for trust and credibility to the business.
Aside from it being cost-effective, it saves time and effort in processing and classifying documents and paperwork where they may otherwise dedicate their efforts to more important business matters.
Virtual Offices
Remote workers and virtual teams have been on the rise in recent years. Advanced companies with employee hires living across cities will have access to a centralized digital document management system. Not only will a digital mailroom keep all crucial paperwork centralized, it also ensures that employees are using the most correct, up-to-date version of each document, preventing the spread of inaccurate or misleading information.
Additionally, most large payments are still conducted through paper checks. Virtual teams can get paid without delays through direct check deposits that come by mail. Digital mailrooms help remote teams effectively receive deposits.
Freelancers
The most appealing thing about being a freelancer is being able to work from anywhere around the country. It fits the unique needs of freelance workers who are not restricted to going to an office everyday. Due to the flexible nature of digital mailrooms, they can access all postal mail using any device.
Freelancers set up a physical, commercial address to use as their business address without compromising their personal address. All the while integrating their document storage and automated check deposits.
How Does a Virtual Mailbox Work?
A virtual mailbox will give you control over postal mail through digitization. Essentially, you set up a virtual business address with the freedom to choose from real street addresses.
All business related mail gets sent regularly to this address and the mail is either forwarded to your home address or digitally straight to your phone.
Any incoming mail gets uploaded to a cloud-based platform where you can access in real-time. For other posts that are deemed unscannable, they may then be redirected to your location.
The main advantage of virtual mailboxes is having complete control and proper management of the mail you receive.
Conclusion
Setting up a professional address doesn’t have to be overwhelming – in fact, it’s just the opposite. Take into account the five simple factors written in this article before committing to the right mail forwarding service for you and your company. Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or part of a virtual team – the solution to your shared mail, check deposits, and document storage is with a virtual mailbox.
Ease the hassle of personal and business-related mail pile-up by separating your work-related documents while maintaining control over all mail received.
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Find the right plan on our Digital Mailroom service to set up your business address securely and cost-effectively. We’ll help you find the best solution to your unique working structure.