Nothing reduces the image of a company than a publicly advertised, free email account like @hotmail.com, @gmail.com, @aol.com, and or @msn.com.  There are many more but stop using them.

I was driving to get my car serviced this morning and rolled up on a brand new 5500 RAM work utility truck.  Beautiful truck, simple logos, good message and the dreadful @hotmail.com.  Immediately it turned me off of their company. They spent all this money on a image and screwed it up with a a free email account that is NOT reliable, not secure, and cannot guarantee the email will ever arrive as the business has no control over its deliverability. They just tarnished their reputation as  cheap, no attention to detail, ultimately a "I don't care mentality." The two sides of what I do, IT Consultant and Business Development Coach just went into overdrive.

It is an easy fix.  If you don't need to know how to do this, ask a reputable business IT consultant or business development coach. Your first step is to secure a domain name which will create the name after the "@" in the email.  You can abbreviate this, it does not need to be your full company name.  In fact, the shorter the better. Then this name will be configured to accept email and you can then use Office 365 email account, without the Office suite of applications or just have the email and then connect to your phone. 

That simple team.  Brand recognition, stability in the business, attention to detail, a little techy, etc. all achieved by completing the package.

If you would like assistance, direction or coaching, please reach out to me at 951-479-1727.