Should I be afraid of sharing my emails?

Well…. let’s face it.

We are all a little protective about our privacy when it comes to emails.

The main reason is that we receive a mix of private and business related messages in our inbox. Also, the email “lingo” tends to be casual, we crack jokes and we might not write as organized as we would do in a classic business letter.

Even so, we exchange information with customers via email that is vital to the business. This includes all kinds of commitments; such as price quotes, order confirmations, etc.

With this in mind, we understand the value that is associated with sharing emails with colleagues. We understand that it makes our company work more efficiently. We understand that the time it takes to locate information decreases significantly. We understand that we can service our customers better and faster.

Despite all of these significant benefits, you will probably ask yourself if an email collaboration system will jeopardize your privacy.

I know exactly where you’re coming from.

In my mailbox I receive a lot of information that is private or even confidential. I receive a monthly notification about my salary transfer, I exchange confidential information with my CEO, I exchange information with my wife, etc.

How can I make sure that my colleagues can take advantage of the emails I exchange with my customers – while at the same time protecting my privacy?

Believe me: We discussed this potential dilemma long and hard when we started to develop Email-Manager™

We needed to make sure that emails exchanged with customers were shared automatically – whilst private emails were being filtered out. We also wanted to make sure that this filter did not become a manual process, as these takes time and tend to be forgotten.

We actually managed to develop a method that does exactly that – and this part of Email-Manager™ is probably what makes is most unique.

Believe it or not: You get all the benefits of email collaboration AND you get to keep the private stuff private!

This intelligent filter engine gives you the following advantages:

• Emails that you exchange with business contacts are automatically arranged in so-called email “journals” - one journal per email address.
  
• The emails that your colleagues exchange with the same email address will be added to the same journal, so that everybody can see the shared email correspondence.
  
• If some of these email addresses are linked to a parent company (as you see in a CRM system), Email-Manager™ can automatically group all the journals that belongs to a specific company. This will allow you and your colleagues to have all the relevant emails exchanged with a specific customer in one place.
  
• Private emails are filtered out so that only you can see them.

There are many systems on the market that offer these benefits using manual or semi-automatic means. Where Email-Manager™ really differentiates itself (and this is a huge advantage) is that these things happen automatically.

The security filter mechanism is fairly sophisticated – and can even figure out how to handle potential conflicts such as:

• Your spouse works for one of your customers and everybody needs to see the email exchange – except the emails that he/she sends directly to you.
  
• Everybody has access to a specific customer email journal, but if your CEO sends an email directly to the CEO of that company – only the management team has access to the email.
  
• Etc.

Since you can create your own security filter “rules” that suits your specific business needs, the list goes on …..

So – in conclusion – do not be afraid of sharing your emails when you have an intelligent privacy filter!

In my next blog entries I will dig more closely into how the filter works from a technical standpoint.