Virtual Velocity 2021 kicked off on August 4th. Using the Filo event platform, all attendees are able to join interactive rooms to learn from experts and network with other business owners. There was a new session each Wednesday in August from 2-4pm EDT. For those not able to join us, we wanted to provide a brief summary of what each of our guest presenters had to say. Our final topic was TrueSign and electronic signatures.
You would be hard-pressed to find a single industry that doesn’t require signatures in some capacity. Between contracts, agreements, release forms, and verified documents, signatures are required to do business. Signatures authorize that you, the signer, have read and agreed to the terms stated in the document at hand. Signing a document doesn’t take more than a few seconds, but you’d be surprised to know how inconvenient traditional signature collection methods are these days.
As we all know, businesses were forced to shut down for weeks or months at a time due to public health risks. If you can’t go to your lawyer’s office, how can you sign your contract? If the contractor is closed, how can you sign that you agree to the terms and conditions of the new partnership? The pandemic expedited a digital transformation that has been underway for years. In our discussion with Worldox and Brother International, we covered how the process is changing and what it means for different industries.
The Problems With Traditional Methods
Just because something is traditional, does not mean it is the best. The Pony Express was the traditional way of transporting mail, but no one can argue that we should have kept it rather than switching to mail vans and eventually email. The same can be said with signature collection methods. Yes, in-person, wet signatures are traditional, but we have new developments that offer far better alternatives. Rob Beier, TrueSign Strategic Alliance Manager, kicked off our last discussion with a list of problems wet signatures come with.
- Delays: The most prominent problem associated with wet signatures is delays. This may seem like a very general problem, but don’t worry – Rob broke down the different types of delays as well.
- Delays caused by schedule conflicts: Let’s say that Party A needs to visit Party B to sign a document. While this might seem like a simple situation, it rarely is. Party A works the same schedule as Party B and neither can afford to take time off to visit the other because they’re both working on big projects. Unless both parties agree to meet outside of work hours (eating into free time or family time), there’s no good time to get together. The higher your position the more packed your schedule. You can’t cancel a client meeting to run across town for a signature. In most cases, the only solution is working overtime and making the trip when you should be at home relaxing.
- Delays caused by travel: Closely associated with the first type of delay, travel delays result from the parties being in different locations. This type can include physical travel from one office to another, traffic that slows down scheduled meeting times, or the time a document spends in snail mail. Travel is tedious, especially if you have to drive solely to sign a document before turning around and driving again. Traffic and the postal service are both out of your control, so these delays tend to be the most frustrating.
- Delays caused by communication: Rob carried on the discussion by talking about how communication can cause serious delays in collecting signatures. Busy workdays leave people with little time for an extra phone call or email, and most professionals rarely glance at their phones while on the clock. You can send a text asking about a signature only to wait hours or even days to get a response. In the worst cases, the message recipient opens the message, plans to respond later, and then completely forgets they ever received it. Government and courts require chains of communication to accomplish most things. The more people you add to that chain, the more delays you can expect in communication and therefore final sign-off on whatever you’re discussing.
- Inconvenience: The second problem with wet signatures is the inconvenience that comes along with them. As Rob pointed out, some TrueSign clients have told him stories about working with partners on the other side of the city, state, or country. With the traditional process, at least one party must be willing to commute in order to collect the signature. It’s an antiquated process that takes time and effort that can certainly be better used elsewhere in the company. To make matters worse, the business then has to worry about expenses accrued on the trip such as gas, rental car, hotels, plane tickets, etc.
- Waste: Lastly, Rob spoke about how wasteful the traditional signature process is. To keep things brief, here’s a quick overview of the resources being wasted in many cases:
- Time
- Money
- Productivity
- Gas/Energy sources
- Paper
- Office supplies
- And more
How Has TrueSign and Electronic Signatures Solved These Problems?
Our discussion continued by turning to Steve and Ray to hear about their companies’ experiences with TrueSign. Both Worldox and Brother International have partnered with TrueSign to incorporate its unique eSignature capabilities into their existing products. Worldox serves a wide variety of industries with a heavy focus on the legal space and finance. Brother International has a strong presence in the B2B space as well as home office and retail. Rob asked Ray and Steve how TrueSign has impacted their client’s daily lives.
- Worldox: For some background, Worldox is an end-to-end document lifecycle company. They’ve been in business for over 30 years and have accumulated an impressive customer base within that time. Worldox customers (particularly those in the legal area) were pestered by all of the problems Rob broke down earlier. They were looking for electronic signature capabilities that lived within the current Worldox system. TrueSign was able to make it happen so that the document lifecycle truly is handled from end to end. By implementing electronic signatures, Worldox customers could get documents signed without ever leaving their home or office. In addition, the TrueSign template library is saving hours of work. Lawyers tend to reuse documents often as some forms are required in all cases, so a library of templates keeps things constantly on hand. Clients have also praised TrueSign for its accessibility to both internal and external users. No download is required, and signatures can be collected from any device during in-person or virtual meetings.
- Brother: Brother International is a home office and B2B business. They produce some of the best office devices in the world complete with top-notch software and security. The partnership with TrueSign has enabled every Brotherprinter, scanner, etc. to become a scan-to-sign workplace. Rather than faxing or hand-delivering papers, clients can sign electronically from their own office. Business owners and executives rarely have a free moment, so TrueSign is an excellent solution for Brother’s business-centric market. Send and sign documents from anywhere, complete with CJIS compliant security measures that are guaranteed to keep confidential company documents away from prying eyes. No more traveling, and no more clearing out schedules to sign contracts, deals, agreements, checks, etc.
Ray and Steve each shared anecdotes they either experienced first-hand or heard about from a client. This portion of our discussion proves that TrueSign has real-life success stories that customers willingly share. Our goal is to make collecting signatures easier than ever so that professionals in any industry can spend more time doing high-priority tasks. Electronic signatures are legally accepted by the US government and provide a much more efficient and accessible way to get things done. Worldox and Brother are two examples of TrueSign in action, and we hope to form many more partnerships as digital transformation takes off across the nation.
If you’re interested in learning more about TrueSign, listen in to our most recent podcast. We encourage you to explore the TrueSign website to read about our most popular features. We are currently offering free trials as well as a test document that you can sign instantly. As always, demos are available upon request.
For additional questions or to schedule a virtual demo please contact our team at contactus@truesign.com.
Thank you to everyone who came out to Virtual Velocity!