Overheard in the office, “Can you fax that to me?”. Your first thought might be that this was said in the office 20 years ago before the prevalence of email and the internet. However, many industries still rely on fax machines. The most likely reason that people will tell you is that fax machines are “safer”. While it’s true that fax machines are safer than email as far as someone intercepting your message, it’s not the safest overall. In most cases, that fax machine is shared by a group of employees and the message could easily get grouped with someone else’s print job or end up in the trash. As the sender, you can see if the fax went through, but you don’t know if the recipient actually received the fax.
We see this reliance on fax machines in the credit world where references sometimes request that you fax them the credit reference. The real reason they choose fax, is that they have always done it that way. Plus, if the fax never makes it to them, there’s no consequence. However, there are consequences for the credit applicant when you list a reference with their fax machine instead of their email. We’ve seen dramatic time savings and completion rates when an email is listed instead of a fax number.
As a credit applicant, curating your references is an important piece of completing a credit application. We recommend choosing references where you have a great payment history, are in the industry of the company providing credit, and have a strong email contact that is highly likely to respond. Once you complete a credit application on Fiado’s platform, your references are saved along with your credit application profile so that the next time you complete a credit app, you only need to review the prior data and click submit. Fax machines don’t allow for this simplicity and create wasteful work as it requires the same information to be provided endlessly.
There’s nothing wrong with using a fax machine, just like there is nothing wrong with using an old flip phone. But using Fiado, like upgrading to a smartphone, allows you to accomplish tasks easier with better results. If you’d like to learn how Fiado could benefit your organization, reach out and let’s chat.
