With the passing of each day, more and more consumers come to prefer email communications versus slow mail, hard to read faxes and expensive overnight delivery services.

Because of this trend, it is increasingly important that business professionals become more able to serve these connected consumers.

While the majority of agents do use email on a regular basis, most still consider email to be not much more than simple text.

What's lacking from the average agent's customer service arsenal is the ability to think "paperless" or at least about less paper.

On any given day, there are still thousands of agents printing MLS searches onto paper, only to feed them into fax machines (before throwing them away). This is done so that they can pay long distance phone charges to convert the paper into bits and bytes, if only for a moment, and then back onto printed paper from the recipient's machine; destroying the quality of all photographs and graphics in the process.

The same is true of contracts, highlight sheets and forms.

In several of my seminars, I demonstrate Adobe's Acrobat software in order to render the above scenario even more obviously obsolete than it already is. However, while powerful, at $240 (street price) Acrobat isn't cheap.

On the other hand, there is an Internet solution (of course) that's nearly as good and absolutely free (again, of course) due to built-in advertisements.

The site to visit is: http://www.hotsend.com

The purpose of your visit is to download their free software.

The reason you'll want to download their software is simple. Once installed, you will then be able to:

• Print anything you like to a computer file
• Which, can then be emailed to anyone else
• So that they can view it, just as you created it
• Complete with color, photographs and graphics
• Without having to use the same software that you do

< P>In a nutshell, all of this techno-magic is accomplished in two simple steps.

The first step is that you just print whatever you want to send (contracts, highlight sheets, MLS searches, etc.) not to your actual printer, but to the "Hotsend-Email-Attacher" which, for lack of a better word, pretends to be a real printer. This step simply creates the file that you will send.

The second step is that you email the file to your customer or client. When the recipient opens their email, they can simply double-click the attachment, and they'll see the document - just as you created it. They can even use their own printer if they need a copy on paper.

There is just one other question that needs explaining: How can your customers and clients read the files you send?

Simple: When you "print" to the "Hotsend-Email-Attacher" you are given the option of packaging the "Hotsend Viewer" software right into the document you're sending. They get your document and the appropriate "viewer" at the same time!

It's worth noting that the "viewer" does add considerable size to the file you send, but you only need to send it to them once.

So, the FIRST time you send a client or customer any document, go ahead and send them the "viewer" too. After that, send future "printouts" without the viewer. These subsequent files will be much smaller, and thus faster to send.

Once you start using this software to email documents, then you'll probably want to explore a great number of other ways to take advantage of it. Consider distributing highlight sheets and forms electronically on floppy disks or CD's, for example. Or, simply let customers download them directly from your web site.

I would like to make it clear that HotSend is NOT as sophisticated, flexible or universally supported as Adobe Acrobat; a program I find indispensable and use daily.

Additionally, Acrobat will create files that are much smaller (meaning faster transmissions and downloading) than will HotSend; and obviously doesn't bundle advertisements within the program, either.

If you've got Adobe Acrobat, stick with it. It IS the standard-bearer of electronic documents. But, if you don't, then consider HotSend your first (not last) step into the realm of paperless customer service.

Also See:

Effective E-Mail Is More Than Netiquette

How Virtual Agents Use E-mail

Why AOL EMail Stinks for REALTORS®

Eudora Pro - For Free?

Published: February 25, 2000

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