How many hours do your employees spend at your company pushing paper? How much time is spent while concluding a contract since everyone needs to meet in person to sign papers? Can you keep secret paper contracts safe while tangible copies are shared around?
Questions like these prompt astute business owners to consider if going paperless is a better solution. Here are five reasons why your company should use e-signatures.
Electronic signatures allow employees to focus on more important tasks
How much time do your staff spend managing signed contracts, permission paperwork, or invoices in your business? Most paper trails begin with printing the document, handing it to a client or patient to study and sign, scanning the signed document into a digital version, and then destroying or storing the form in file cabinets or storage facilities. An e-signature keeps the entire procedure digital.
How much time would your staff save if everything was kept in a single safe database? What would your company’s bottom line look like if that time was focused on customer service instead?
Digital processes improve customer experience
Customers continuously expect that their interactions be quick and efficient. Digital signatures eliminate the requirement for meeting times and locations to be coordinated in order for paper documents to be signed. Customers are also given more time to review and comprehend what they are signing.
During in-person conversations, clients regard stacks of paper as something they must just go through. They seldom read what they sign since they are under time constraints to finish the transaction. Customers feel more educated when they may look through materials at their own leisure during the process.
Going paperless has both economic and environmental advantages
Your company may save money on paper, professional shredding, and storage by implementing a digital signature method. You may be able to remove or decrease the requirement for scanning and copying equipment.
Reducing the use of paper benefits the environment as well. DocuSign, which has been in business since 2003, boasts the environmental advantages of its service, stating that its digital procedure has saved 2.5 million trees and replaced 20 million pieces of paper.
Paper documents are not as secure as digital documents
Paper papers are difficult to track unless they are kept visible at all times. Using physical copies may result in the disclosure of secret information to your rivals. Signatures can be imitated. Paper is very brittle and readily destroyed. It’s also easily misplaced. Many e-signature solutions include layers of security, such as encryption, to ensure that malicious actors cannot access papers. Some additionally give audit trails, which record the precise moment of the signature and if someone attempted to tamper with the document after it was signed.