Our generation communicates via telephone, chat, email, video, letters… and fax. The number of facsimile machine users in the 1990s was massive. Every business person had their phone number with a fax number just below it on their business cards, websites, and promotions. The advent of email really made fax-based communications less important for the general business community. You may or may not have sent a fax message this week or even this year. But there are millions of people still using fax. Why are people still using fax? Here are seven reasons we see why companies, governments, and other organizations are still using facsimile transmissions.
- Fax is seen as reliable- It’s always on.
- Perceived as secure- fax is a one to one connection between two parties with no middlemen (unlike like mail servers)
- Can be quicker to interact with your customers or suppliers- Immediately prints out in high volume business environments
- Never has issues with Asian writing- China, Japan, Korea or other non-Latin based characters always display correctly.
- Immediate- Like handing a note to someone when it prints out on the tray, the recipient get the document immediately with logging in and printing something.
- Fax is legally expedient- for serving court papers and it avoids the spam filters, bouncing, and other challenges of email.
- Fax is an easy way to send signatures or other approvals
The telex may be a thing of the past, but much like automatic mechanical watches were eclipsed by quartz watches, fax transmissions and fax machines may never go away. They just deliver on their role in the communications spectrum. Here at CIRCLE Cloud Communications, we built out Japan’s fastest growing VoIP telephone service. But despite having phone, chat, video, and document sharing built in, people kept asking for a fax service. After over a year of referring businesses to a (not so reliable) fax service, we decided we needed to build something. We knew we could do it better just as we did with CIRCLE. With that the QuickFAX Fax over IP (FoIP) service was born. From idea to Japan’s best FoIP service.
Like email, fax will never be perfect, but we work hard to make QuickFAX the best service available. If your interest in why people are still using fax goes beyond just thoughts, please be sure to check out QuickFAX service here.
Happy faxing!