Good customer service is the backbone of any successful business. Customers inherently want to trust the brands they deal with, because more than anything they want convenience. The concept of “peace of mind” is what makes consumers spend a little more money on well-established brands.
This is where e-signatures come in.
Electronic signatures
Electronic signatures, called e-signatures for short, are the modern version of their traditional ink-on-paper counterpart. They are treated just like traditional signatures, but are instead a virtual version much like a digital photo. There are many advantages to having e-signature such as convenience and negating the need for paper and cutting company spending.
Your company has likely already begun the shift to a digital workspace, and having to physically sign documents has become more of a novelty than a necessity. Further, having your company switch to using e-signatures almost completely eliminates the need for courier services, wait times, and the anxiety that comes with waiting for a text or message from your recipient saying that they received the document.
Trust is invaluable to any business
Just like how using electronic signatures makes internal communication in a company much easier, the same can be said when dealing with customers. Having your electronic signature shown on outgoing emails and newsletters is invaluable.
Consumers are human beings, and they want to be talked to and not talked at. With electronic signatures, your consumers will be assured that they’re not dealing with an automated, lifeless messaging bot that simply wants to get their problems over with.
Instead, they’ll know that they’ll be speaking with a customer service representative, an actual person and the voice of the company, who will listen to their problems and work with them to solve them together.
Electronic signatures are so important because they generate trust. Trust is what gets new consumers to try the brand and keep them coming back for more. It’s what gets consumers to ignore potentially less expensive products and services that effectively do the same thing as your own, creating a sense of brand loyalty.
Having your customer service representatives show their names in outgoing emails is a good way to gain a customer’s trust, but including an e-signature is a great way to take a few more steps in the right direction.
To add, e-signatures also allow you to legally bind your trust to your business partners. By signing names on documents using e-signatures, such as a contract or a partnership agreement, you will be able to hold the people you do business with accountable to their promises which could potentially generate even more revenue for you and your company.
Consumer trust generates even more networks
Every consumer has their own circle of trust. These are their friends, family members, significant others, workmates, and colleagues. Everyone within these circles trust each other to a certain degree.
A satisfied consumer is not only likely to build trust between themselves and the brand, but also likely to pass on that trust to people within their network. This word-of-mouth advertising is one of the most sought after types of marketing because it costs you nothing but it spreads your brand’s influence and nets your company a potential sale in the future.
Having a good product is one thing that a customer will talk about to their immediate circle, but you want your company name to be just as recognizable. Having a great customer service experience is what separates a good business from a great business.
The inclusion of e-signatures alone may not carry your company, but it shows that your people have an eye for detail by showing that you’re willing to take an extra step further when it comes to making your outgoing emails look as professional as possible. More than that, it shows that the people in your company trust your business enough to sign their names on it thus is worth the consumer’s trust as well.
How to integrate e-signatures into your business
Now that you know why you need to integrate e-signatures, it’s important to know how to incorporate them as well.
The simplest way to do this is to find an e-signature program online. One good example that we recommend is PDFRun. It offers e-signature solutions that are readily available online and easy to use.
PDFRun’s electronic signature solutions support more file formats than just PDF; as you have the convenience of uploading common file formats such as .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .doc, .docx and extract them all back as .pdf files.
It also does not require you to download any specific programs to run effectively. Since it is a browser-based e-signature solution, all you need is access to a web browser to upload and edit the corresponding file.
Further, since it does not require a download, you can use it using any platform with access to a web browser, such as desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other such media devices.
PDFRun’s electronic signature solutions let you upload an electronic file and affix a signature to it. You can draw it, type it out, or upload an image of a signature on paper. We recommend that you save an image of your signature so you don’t have to repeatedly input your signature for multiple documents.
You also have the option to assign signatories for other people who might need to have their names signed on the document.
These features in an e-signature service are important because signing your name on a document should be quick and convenient just like its traditional ink-on-paper counterpart. It should be simple as time spent dealing with unnecessary errors or a buggy program is time and productivity wasted.
E-signatures are the new present and the near future
As more and more companies start to move to a paperless workspace, the need for traditional signatures will become even less but the necessity of being familiar with the concept and incorporation of electronic signatures will become even greater.
Though the traditional ink-on-paper signature will never completely go away, because of their convenience and ease of use, e-signature software and websites such as PDFRun are here to stay as well.
If your business has not already begun transitioning to or at the very least begun familiarizing yourselves with electronic signatures, then now is as good of a time to start.
Incorporating electronic signatures could score your company more new consumers, more repeat customers and buyers, and most of all, more trust in your brand.
