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Whether you should use a free email program is something you’ll really want to consider if you have a business. For personal use there’s nothing wrong with a free program, because it’s just your friends and family members that have your email address. When you’re running a business, though, it’s a little bit different. Having only a free email address for your business could make your customers think that you aren’t taking your business very seriously. Naturally, that’s not the kind of information you want to convey to a person who you hope will buy from you.
Some people don’t care about the email address that you’re using. They just want to get their goods or services reliably and have them be of good quality. Many of the free email programs work very well, too, and they can store a lot of messages. That makes them a good idea for the business that receives a large volume of email, since it otherwise might get kicked back from a full mailbox. That would be much worse from a customer relationship standpoint than using a free address. One of the ways to make a decision is to look at what your closest competitors are doing.
If the people who you’re competing with for business all use free email programs, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. If none of them are using these kinds of options for their email, you may not want to buck the trend. It could reflect badly on you as a business person and make you appear unprofessional. That would be unfortunate, and could become a serious issue for your business, especially as it grows. Free email addresses seem to be more expected of small businesses, so you won’t likely have as much of an issues early on when your business is just getting started.
