This is a partial extract from an article I’ve written for another website.

You can find the full article available here (PDF | WORD | OOD)

Why you should never use an ISP Mail address for Business

As a member and contributor to various Anti-“spam” forums, this is a subject that often appears.
Now unless you have some technical understanding of how mail works, it is not surprising that many people are not aware of the pitfalls surrounding email.

This document will discuss the issue of using any ISP for email, and examine the various other options available.

The title was intended to be contentious in order to provoke the reader into understanding the concept of why it is potentially harmful to your business not to understand the effects of not controlling your email. It must also be made clear that there are good ISP’s out there with which you could have no problems what so ever, but the points raised below still hold true for ANY ISP.

Contact Email Addresses on your Web Site.

Most companies will provide an email address on their web site as a means of contact.
There are a couple of main reasons why this can lead to problems.

  • Masses of “spam”.

  • Users unable to send mail to the address.

  • User sends mail, but it’s not received by you.

Getting No Replies to your Mail?

Imagine you have received an inquiry from a customer.
You send a reply, but never hear anything back.
You send a further reply, but still nothing back.

Or imagine you send out a newsletter from your own ISP mail account.
But you have a really low return rate.

Does this mean that your customers are just not interested in you now?
(Then why would they contact you in the first place).
The chances are that the customer never received your mail in the first place.

You can find the full article available here (PDF | WORD | OOD)