We run a small SaaS startup and we're using GMail for Business. Each member of staff currently has a personal email address using their first name. For example john@example.com, steve@example.com...
We also have Gmail groups: admin@example.com (this receives daily reports on the health of our system and is also used as a user account for our staff to log into our own systems), support@example.com (customer queries / complaints all come here), and info@example.com (this is what we advertise on marketing material including our website).
Emails sent to these GMail groups get distributed to the list of people in that group. For example emails sent to info@example.com get sent to both john@example.com and steve@example.com, but emails sent to admin@example.com only get sent to Steve.
Now we're considering dropping the groups / distribution lists altogether, and instead creating individual accounts for each function. In other words we'd have an account for support@example.com where all support emails can be archived, and then dedicated support staff can simply log into this GMail account.
Which of the above two strategies is better - distribution lists (current strategy) or individual accounts that are shared? Is the first name convention a bad idea for personal email addresses? And lastly what email address convention should we use for our billing / accounts. I currently send out invoices once a quarter from my personal email address, and I always add a personalised message for each client.
Cheers from Cape Town!
