What difference does an email address at your own name make?
You already have an address that works. So why change it? A look at first impressions, continuity and a move you can plan without losing touch.
You have had the same address since 2009. It works. All your contacts have it. Why change?
Because an email address is not just an inbox. It is often the first thing a customer reads from you: before your quote, before your price, before even your name.
What your address says before you speak
Put yourself in the shoes of a property manager asking for three quotes for commercial snow removal. They receive three emails:
- quotes@deneigementlacroix.ca
- jflacroix_1978@hotmail.com
- deneigement.jf.montreal.2024@gmail.com
The three companies may do exactly the same work, with the same equipment and the same care. But before reading a single line, the manager has already formed an opinion about which of the three is an established business.
It is not fair. It is human. And it can be fixed in ten minutes.
The concrete reasons, beyond image
Your emails get delivered more reliably. Spam filters look at where a message comes from. An address at your own domain, set up properly, gets through more easily than a free address that suddenly sends ten quotes in one day. A quote that lands in the junk folder is a contract lost that you will never know you lost.
The address belongs to you. If your employee leaves with the Gmail account they created, you lose your customer history. With your domain, you close their address and create another one. The emails stay in the business.
It grows with you. info@, quotes@, accounting@, each employee’s first name. You can forward, create, close, without ever changing what is written on your trucks.
Your business cards stop contradicting each other. Your website says yourbusiness.ca, your card says hotmail.com. The customer notices. Not consciously, but they notice.
“But I will lose my old emails”
No. Your old address keeps existing and we forward it to the new one. You lose nothing, and your old contacts keep reaching you exactly as before. The switch happens gradually, over months, without ever losing touch.
What it costs
At ganolyk, email is included in our Web Care plans. Mail, at $39 a month, includes one mailbox in your name, set up on your phone and your computer. Team, at $49 a month, goes up to 10 mailboxes. Complete, at $89 a month, offers unlimited mailboxes. These prices before tax also cover hosting, the domain and the support of the plan you choose. Good news: with a Business or Expansion website, the first year of the Mail plan is included.
Only looking for email? We can assess your needs and suggest a solution on request.
So the short answer to the question: no, you do not have to. You can stay with Hotmail and keep doing good business. But if you send quotes to companies, property managers or municipalities, it is probably the smallest change with the biggest effect you will make this year.
And for my business, where do we start?
We start from what you already have and what is missing. One conversation is enough to pin down the next step.
