Digital Mobile moves to electronic signing for contracts
Background: Digital Mobile needed to replace its paper-based signup
system with an electronic process. It required a secure system with improved compliance
that reduced customer frustration at filling in forms.
Digital Mobile is New Zealand’s largest Vodafone dealer, with more than 375 employees
in retail and business-to-business sales offices, in 80 points of presence nationwide
The company’s business customers were signing their Vodafone contracts using a paper-based
system. In some cases, customers were returning incomplete contracts, and consequently
not receiving all of the services they had requested.
Digital Mobile wanted to implement a signup process using mobile data and remote
working to retain customers and make the process of signing up to Vodafone a more
streamlined and satisfying customer experience.
“Finding an electronic signature capture solution had proven to be a challenge.
We needed a solution that worked both on site with a customer and remotely via email,”
said Ben Smythe, Digital Mobile’s Sales Manager – Northern. “Naturally, our team
wanted to use their Vodafone 3G tablets to capture customer signatures or to send
the forms from their mobiles to customers for signing on their own PC.”
One of the key challenges with making the workflow digital was ensuring that the
new process fulfilled the same legal requirements as the paper-based system it was
replacing. A digital contract
signed by a Digital Mobile customer needed to be robust enough that if it were challenged
subsequent to signup – even six months or years down the track - the company could
have complete confidence that it had a record of the signature, when the contract
was signed, by whom, and at what time.
Solution: Digital Mobile turned to Secured Signing, an Auckland-based
company that provides a secure and legally binding digital PKI-user based signing
process - the only New Zealand company with an offering of this kind.
Secured Signing created a customised and branded solution for Digital Mobile, taking
PDFs of each of the Vodafone ordering forms, generating web-based versions, and
adding business rules validation to each of the forms.
“Our aim was to provide a powerful turnkey Cloud solution with easy user experience
for signing contracts online or face to face,” said Mike Eyal, Managing Director
at SecuredSigning. “The user-based PKI digital
signature technology offers confidence to Digital Mobile and their customers
while supplying the last step of a truly paperless process.”
When a customer is ready to sign a contract, their Digital Mobile sales agent logs
into the system, selects the correct form, setup signing due date and emails them
an invitation. The customer clicks on a link in the email and is taken to the contract,
which they sign online or, in a face-to-face meeting, by using the sales rep’s tablet
device.
Any signature is time-stamped and the document is sealed – once it is signed. Any
changes made to the signed contract invalidate the signature and can immediately
be identified. PDFs of the signed contract are then emailed to the sales agent and
the customer.
Results: The process of moving Digital Mobile business contracts
to a digital signing process took Secured Signing just one month, with implementation
across all of its company-owned branches nationwide. It is now being rolled out
to franchisees, all of which will be using the new system by the end of this financial
year.
“We were able to implement this solution quickly and easily,” said Ben Smythe. “The
benefits have been instantly realised by our sales workforce, our processing team
and our customers.”
Digital Mobile’s new documents signing process takes half the time of the former
paper-based system. The system manages the signing process, sends reminders to customers,
and manages the follow-up. Its sales agents can now see at a glance which information
on forms is mandatory, and add it with a simple mouse click. It’s given them the
ability to close a deal fast, and concentrate on their core work.
There is no need for staff to go back to a customer to initial changes or add missing
information; and there’s no risk of customers returning incomplete forms. This has
resulted in a 10% saving in time spent on paperwork by sales reps, and a 20% reduction
in time spent by processing staff. On the compliance side, it has reduced rejections
by 100%.
It’s easier for customers, too, with no need to print forms, sign them, scan them
and send them back. When they enter their details in Digital Mobile’s system, that
information is retained, so when they come to renew, or add a service to their contract,
they don’t need to key it in again.
And they have the assurance that the documents they sign are processed accurately,
held securely and security checked.
“We’ve seen a total elimination of errors, in the move away from paper,” Ben Smythe
said. “Plus the document is also stored in our CRM – so there’s no more searching
for paperwork.”
“We have a more streamlined sales force now, using cutting-edge tools and technology.
They’re also able to demonstrate to customers the benefits of tablet technology
and how to integrate this into their own businesses.”
About Secured Signing
Secured Signing provides a comprehensive and secure web-based digital signatures
service that delivers a full range of signing capabilities combining advanced PKI
technology, an easy to use, simple to deploy, compliant solution.
Secured Signing was founded by TME Consulting Ltd., a privately owned New Zealand
company established in 2003. Secured Signing bases its activities on the extensive
knowledge and experience of its team of experts in the development of data security
products and technology to a wide range of industries worldwide.
For more information please visit: www.securedsigning.com
About Digital Mobile
Digital Mobile was founded in 1993, as one of New Zealand’s first GSM cellular dealerships.
Digital Mobile has a mixture of company-owned and channel partner locations and
through these has 80 points of presence nationwide. Digital Mobile represents
Vodafone to sell and support Vodafone products and services to local markets.
For more information please visit:
www.digitalmobile.co.nz