Paper creates obstacles. And, since you aren’t a fan of paper obstacles, you signed on to digitize your workflows. Check! But that was years ago. (And if you haven’t digitized your workflow, find out how much that will cost). Fast forward a few years and, as a savvy systems administrator, you recognize that there are still paper bottlenecks happening. And you aim to stop them, by golly!
Odds are, your employees are creating digital documents now in your digital workflow. They’re probably sharing documents and collaborating with team members in environments like Microsoft 365 Teams and Monday and Teamwork. Things are mostly entirely digital.
But not all things.
See, humans are lazy. We are wired to take the path of least resistance and do the thing that takes the least amount of effort. In document management, that means that your employees will pick the fastest, easiest way to get something done. For the most part, the easiest way to operate is digitally. But there are some throwback paper processes in your digital process that haven’t had the kinks ironed out of them yet. One of the biggest analogue kinks to a digital workflow is signatures.
Signatures! How can adding a signature to an agreement throw a wrench in your workflow? Because, until recently, there weren’t great digital alternatives for signing documents. But now there are.
When it comes to getting documents signed, your employees will always lean on printing a contract or an agreement on paper (and then scanning that paper document) if you don’t put a better, paperless option in place to keep signatures digital. Solving this lazy, wasteful practice means finding a good digital document signing program.
Sounds simple right? But 80% of UK businesses print documents simply for signatures. And that’s gross. It’s also not secure. Paper isn’t encrypted. And paper doesn’t come with an audit trail. Those are just two advantages of switching to a digital signature app.
Another benefit of using an app? You can sign documents wherever you are using whatever smart device you have. Phone, tablet… smartwatch. Done. This speaks to another digital signature app bonus—efficiency.
Compare the time it takes to print off a contract, sign it in ink, scan it back to digital, then email it off to tapping one button that opens the contract in an electronic signature app, dragging your saved signature where it needs to go, and clicking the send button. That’s something like a 30-minute to 30-second comparison. The app just paid for itself right there, one time.
[C]ompanies are quickly realizing the benefits. The number of worldwide eSignature transactions jumped from 89 million in 2012 to 754 million in 2017. That's a lot of contracts.—Hubspot
Let’s take a look at the top three electronic signature apps out there today (all three are available on Android and iOS):
Hellosign by Dropbox has a beautiful UI and, at just $24 per month for your team (the best price for businesses on the market), it offers a solid and efficient way to sign documents that doesn’t involve printers or deforestation. It also offers great customer service according to reviews and some of the best customizations, like fully-integrated branding. As another bonus, if you’re a HubSpot user, HelloSign is built into HubSpot's Sales Hub Free.
DocuSign is used by over 200 million people, and endorsed by Google, making it the most popular signature app going. It makes it easy to digitize your agreement process, is a big integrator of third-party apps, and puts a focus on security. In fact, it has security certificates for both the USA and Europe. And security is important in an age where threat actors are successfully breaching firewalls and wreaking havoc to your beautiful digital workflows.
Aw, cute name, right? Who cares! PandaDoc has won awards because of its ease-of-use. It also focuses on integrations into payment gateways and CRM and storage programs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Stripe, and Google Drive. It gets the job done.
Which eSignature app is best for you? All of them provide free trials and demos. Capterra, the king of product comparisons, ranks all three neck and neck across the board. You’ll just have to see what your employees like the best. The sooner the better!
Ruining your digital score because of signatures is silly. You know that. That’s why you made things digital to improve your business process and give mother earth the old “I got you” nod. You digitized your workflow but you didn’t have things completely figured out. Your employees still fell back on paper some of the time. Most of that related to getting a signature. Now, you’ve got that under control too. Bravo!