As businesses scale, they need to find efficient strategies for managing large volumes of customer data and communications. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms largely eliminate the need for manual input into routine communications, allowing for far more frequent correspondence with customers and, consequently, more information about how those customers engage with your brand. When a document needs to be shared with a customer, this has traditionally been done via a CRM / marketing automation tool as an email attachment, however document storage platforms such as SecurDocs now represent a compelling alternative.
Why switch from email attachments to secure document storage?
Security and access controls
When you send a document as an email attachment, you lose the ability to control and monitor who accesses it, as the document can be downloaded, stored, and forwarded by the recipient. When using secure document storage, you can send access links that take the recipient to the document in the platform, rather than attaching it to the email. This allows you to password protect the document, specify the period for which the document’s accessible, and see who’s accessed it and when. This enhances your data security and allows you to implement very specific access control policies that best suit your needs as an organisation, both minimising the likelihood of a data breach and ensuring compliance with regulatory or industry privacy standards.
File size limitations & costs
Email attachments are limited to files smaller than 25MB. If you want to share large documents, images, or videos with customers or your internal staff, these will need to be stored in an accessible location. You can do this either by uploading the file to a public location like YouTube or your company website where anyone can access them, or use a document platform like SecurDocs, where access controls can be put in place. If you’re using a CRM or marketing automation platform to send emails, there are typically costs associated with email attachments. Linking to a centralised document storage platform gets around these costs, which can be significant if you’re sharing large files.
Organisation and traceability
Secure storage platforms allow you to organise your documents in a very comprehensive and automated way. If you need to find previous correspondences you’ve had with a customer, these can be easily searched for and retrieved via your document archive. These tools can be particularly useful when it comes to collaboration and version control. If you’re using email attachments to share a document that two or three people are working on, you inevitably end up with multiple conflicting versions. A document storage platform eliminates this problem by both maintaining a centralised master version and retaining all previous versions with changes tracked. They also allow you to implement custom workflows for documents that need input from several people in a specified sequence. For example, if you have a purchase order that needs to be signed off by multiple approvers, the document can be automatically sent to each approver in turn once the previous step is complete.
CRM integration
Document storage platforms can be integrated with your existing CRM platform to link all documents and communications with customer records. This allows sales or customer service staff to quickly and easily retrieve all relevant information related to a customer or prospect and bring that context to bear in their ongoing relationship with them.
Businesses can reap substantial benefits from shifting from email attachments to secure document platforms. This transition offers enhanced data security, streamlined collaboration, effective file management, and scalability beyond what’s possible when simply using a CRM. By harnessing the capabilities of secure document platforms, businesses can safeguard sensitive information while fine-tuning their operations, resulting in heightened productivity and better collaboration.
