eSignatures: The Top 5 Requirements for Digital Transformation

A business undergoes a digital transformation by implementing digital technologies to make new — or change existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to adhere to the changing demands in the business and market. Digital transformation begins and ends with the customer. It is all about how engaged they are during the transformation process of going paperless. An important component of digital transformation is the use of eSignatures. This completely alters business processes and customer experiences. eSignatures are the next best alternative to paperwork, especially now since the pandemic has gotten customers afraid to leave their homes. As more and more businesses digitize, tools like eSignatures will make even stronger waves in technology, as well as our everyday lives.

Why Use eSignatures?

The old school ways of entering a branch or physical location to fill out endless paperwork are over. With eSignatures, customers can do all these tedious things on their mobile divides from the comfort of their own homes — no more printing, mailing, faxing, or in-person visits. The ease of filling out a form becomes much more desirable to customers and once they get a taste, there is no going back. It is vital for businesses to keep up with the growing demand for eSignatures, especially in the midst of the pandemic, as digital demand has skyrocketed. Businesses must continue to provide a digital customer experience in order to survive. For many, this means transforming much of their business into something newer and better.

How eSignatures Can Support a Complete Digital Transformation

In 2019, Lightco partnered with Happy State Bank in Texas to help them improve efficiencies and digitally transform. Since the partnership, Lightico has been allowing the bank to onboard and service customers online by sending them a text message with a link to a mobile session. In this session, customers can provide eSignatures and upload required documents. Since the ongoing pandemic, Happy State Bank was forced to close its physical branches to keep the health and safety of customers and employees intact. Luckily, the bank had already had Lightico’s digital solutions and were able to service their customers remotely. Happy State Bank experienced a 90% completion rate on account openings, a reduced time to process loans and loan deferral requests, and increased their customer interaction via digital channels 4x. The bank expanded its use of Lightico’s eSignature solution to make sure customers could still complete all their banking needs easily, securely, and remotely.

The Top 5 Requirements for Digital Transformation

When transforming your business, you must do so in a way that is beneficial and convenient for customers. Even if a new digital experience is provided, customers will not use it if it is complicated and difficult to understand. It’s all about the customer experience. We have concluded that there are five key factors that improve digital transformation, thus improving customer satisfaction and the business as a whole.

1. Mobile-Optimized Even prior to the current pandemic, customers were expressing interest in completing a wider variety of transactions from their mobile phones. Unfortunately, many industries have not optimized their customer forms for mobile. So, customers must wait for access to a computer with a PDF reader in order to complete forms. This just makes the whole servicing process longer because it takes so long to send information back and forth. Without mobile-optimized eSignatures, companies risk customers losing interest, or forgetting to fill out the form. In fact, Happy State Bank realized basic actions like opening new accounts, taking out loans, changing account details, applying for credit cards, and modifying existing payments are also simple to facilitate via phone and eForms.

2. Real-Time With Lightico’s digital solutions like eSignatures, transactions can be made in a matter of minutes. Customers and agents communicate via a mobile platform to send documents back and forth in real-time. This ensures that documents are filled out correctly the first time around. Also, this makes the lives of customers just that much easier, which is the overarching goal. In fact, before the pandemic, Happy State Bank conducted 250 virtual sessions in the month of February. But in March, the bank conducted over 1000 sessions with Lightico in real-time. 3. Secure and Compliant Lightico’s eSignature solutions surpass the standard legal requirements like the ESIGN Act and Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. All activities within the Lightico session are time-stamped with a complete audit trail to eliminate legal risks. Additionally, with their partnership with Lightico, Happy State Bank launched its own SBA Paycheck Protection Program platform in just three days. As a result, the bank successfully processed and received SBA authorization for thousands of applications up to $159 million and funded over $50 million in PPP loans. 4. Supports Multi-Party Signing When forms require multiple signatures, the turnaround time to complete the transaction instantly increases. Typically, it would take days or even weeks until all participants can make it to a branch to review and sign tedious paperwork. However, with a multi-party eSignature solution, customers are able to sign from any location, completing the process much faster. With Lightico’s mobile-first solutions, Happy State Bank has been able to speed up the collection of multi-party eSignatures and relevant documents on account openings. Customers are able to provide eSignatures on forms and upload documents from their cell phone camera. 5. Part of a Broader Solution When it comes to eSignatures, there is more than just swiping your finger on the screen and hitting a submit button. There are other aspects that go into it like providing eForms, allowing digital payments, and ID verification. With Lightico’s ID verification solution, costumes can instantly send in a photo of their ID, rather than in-person visits or scanning a copy. All of these factors then come together to provide the ultimate customer experience while simultaneously increasing completion rates for businesses. Lightico was built from the ground up for companies to provide their customers with a fully digital customer journey that integrates seamlessly with the digital backend. Learn more about Lightico’s eSignature capabilities, along with the full platform of eForms, digital payments, ID&V and more at Lightico.com.