With an increasing number of Clients, our email traffic is also rising. This Knowledge Article includes a number of Standard Operating Procedures on how to correctly manage internal and external communication.

ECA Email Structure

Personal Mailboxes

Our mailboxes are managed by Microsoft Office 365, each Team Member at Evolution Cloud Accounting has a personal email address, the common email pattern is firstname@evolutionclouds.com.au. We use our personal email addresses to:

Email each other internally (although we discourage this option and we encourage to use other tools like Microsoft Teams or Karbon Notes and Comments)
Log into most Internal Operating Software (Karbon, Cayzu, Xbert, Dropbox etc)

Distribution Lists

We then use a number of Distribution Lists manly to communicate with Clients and/or Prospects. A distribution list is basically an email address linked to a number of mailboxes. When someone uses the distribution email address, the email is automatically forwarded to all the personal mailboxes linked to the particular distribution email. The most common distribution list emails are:

books@evolutionclouds > all our Accounts & Compliance Officers and Bookkeepers' mailboxes are linked to this Distribution Lis. This email is given to our Bookkeeping Clients to exchange communication with their assigned Officer. We use the 'books' distribution list to facilitate any Client's handover from one Team Member to another.
support@evolutionclouds > this distribution list is linked to our Support System, when one of our Clients emails this address, a Ticket is automatically created in our Support System (Cayzu) and a ticket email confirmation is automatically sent to the Client. Once a ticket is logged, any communication associated with that ticket is sent and received through the support email address. Our Clients should always use this email address for the following:
- Support requests > Xero, MYOB, ServiceM8, KeyPay etc;
- Package requests > any new package we promote through our newsletters should be requested through our Support system;
- Urgent Bookkeeping requests > if one of our ongoing bookkeeping Clients has an urgent request on a day their assigned Officer is not working, they should email Support.
enquiries@evolutionclouds > this distribution list is linked to our website and newsletter and it is used for Prospect Clients wanting to enquire about our services. The only two people linked to this email are Paolo and Vicki.
marketing@evolutionclouds > this distribution list is used by Paolo and Vicki to sign up for different sites and tools for Marketing purposes.

Managing External Communication

Although our mailboxes are hosted by Office 365, Microsoft Outlook is not our primary email manager, Karbon Triage is where we manage all our email communication. However, we still need to use some Microsoft Outlook features currently not available through Karbon.

Karbon and Microsoft Outlook are linked with each other, for example, when an email is cleared in Karbon, it is automatically archived in Microsoft Outlook.

Email Signature

To ensure we have consistency with our Branding vision and with the information we provide to our Clients and Partners, we have a standard email signature, used for all email communications.

Our email signature includes the following elements:

Name, Team Member Image and Position Description
Contact details
Certifications details
Our Logo
Staff availability
Environment clause

The first four elements are created as an image and provided to you by Management. The last two elements are text you need to manually add. In particular, your work availability is important to provide to your Clients, so they know what days/times you are available.

Email Auto-Reply

As well as your email signature, you should also set up an email auto-reply. There are three types of auto-reply:

Standard > this is used when you are working. and This email auto-reply is used to inform Clients their email has been received and of your work availability.
Time-Off > you should use this automatic reply when you take Annual, Personal Leave or any other time you are away on a day/time (full day) you are normally working as outlined in your signature.
Christmas Closure > you should use this automatic reply when the Business is closed for the Christmas period (dates will be supplied to you by Management at least 6 weeks prior to the Closing Date).

Receiving Email Communications in Triage

When you receive an email from a Client in Triage, the email is automatically assigned to the individual contact. You should always ensure the email is also assigned to the Organisation Contact or the Work Item(s) (if the email relates to one or more work items)

Including other Team Members in Client's Email Communications

If you need to include another Team Member in an email, you should follow this policy:

Emails sent by a Client to your inbox where you require assistance from another Team Member before responding
Use the Comments feature in Karbon and @mention the relevant Team Member;
Emails sent to Clients which you require the direct input from another Team Member
Add your Team Member's email address directly in the 'to' field
Emails sent to Clients which you want another Team Member to read
Add your Team Member's email address in the 'cc' field
Emails sent to Clients which you want another Team Member to read, without the Client's knowledge
Add your Team Member's email address in the 'bcc' field

Using ECA Template Emails

We have a range of Template Emails used for specific tasks and circumstances. These templates are saved in a software application called Typedesk. You should have the Typedesk Google Chrome extension installed in your Google Chrome browser and pinned to the extension toolbar in order to access these templates.