No matter what industry your organization serves and who your clients are, failed fax transmissions are never a good thing. When faxes fail to send, business can be lost, regulations can be (unintentionally) violated and customers can be lost. That’s why it’s important for any organization, enterprise or business that faxes to ensure they have the highest delivery rate possible and, if a fax does fail to send, they are aware of the issue immediately.
Here are four things you can do to ensure your fax server continues to send and receive messages 24x7x365.
1. Install the Right Number of Fax Channels
Properly sizing your fax server is one of the most important things to do during deployment, but you’d be surprised to see how many organizations simply do not have enough fax channels to support their fax volume. If you are noticing an increase in queue times or failed transmissions, you may need to add additional fax channels. The rule of thumb is to have enough channels to handle your incoming and outgoing fax traffic during your peak time/s. Don’t try to save money on getting by with fewer lines while clogging up your server during the busiest fax times of the day.
2. Implementing Fax Server Monitoring
When your server fails to send or receive a fax, how long does it take you to become aware of the situation? Many organizations automate their fax processes, which saves time and money, but if you don’t have people monitoring the system you won’t be aware that you are unable to receive faxes for minutes, even hours, at a time.
Thankfully, automated fax server monitoring exists. These types of services “ping” your fax server at set intervals (that you can choose). If your server fails to receive the fax, the system automatically sends a notification to you or someone on your team, alerting you to the issues and allowing you to react quickly.
3. User training
Although fax servers and their software are generally easy to use, they do require some training. Still, user error is a large component in failed transmissions as well as HIPAA and other regulatory violations. Because of this, it’s important to ensure that any team member who will be using your fax server is well-versed in its use, capability and limitations. But you don’t have to invest heavily in this training, there are free OpenTextTM RightFaxTM resources available and entire websites dedicated to RightFax training, troubleshooting and more. At the very least, have your team take this RIghtFax 101 course to get them up to speed.
4. Having Solid Fax Server Support
When something goes wrong with your server, are you confident that you can quickly fix the problem before it interrupts the flow of your business? Not all fax server issues are easy to solve, and some take a bit of development work to resolve. Plus, not all issues occur during your business hours, which is why 24x7x365 support is a must have for organizations whose fax servers are a critical component of their day-to-day operations. Having a reliable team supporting your fax server can be an invaluable resource that pays for itself throughout the year.
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