People these days expect your business to have a domain name and a website. An email address like jsmith@yourcompany.co.nz tells people you’re serious about your business.
Free email services, such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, are great for personal use, but when you use a free email account for business purposes, people will start to doubt your professionalism and credibility.
For example, say you are in the need of some legal advice about a business contract issue, you don’t have a business lawyer so you Google a local provider. You look at their email address and it’s a Gmail address. For many people, that may be the first clue that something is wrong and they would start to question the trustworthiness of the company.
Would you take someone with a Hotmail.com email address seriously when you are wanting some reliable advice? We mean no disrespect here, but there are prejudices about the domain that your email address uses.
If you want your prospective clients to take you seriously and you don’t have your own domain name email address, I recommend you spend a small amount of money and get one. What you put down in writing is all about building credibility in the eyes of your customers, or even more importantly, your prospective customers. Increasing credibility will naturally increase the TRUST that someone has in your company. Higher level of trust usually equals higher level of pricing. A more professional email address is one more way to increase this level of trust.
It does not cost much to arrange a proper domain-name email address. If you need someone to do this for you, contact me and I will put you in touch with a reliable IT expert to get you sorted.