5 Most Common Salesforce e-Signature Uses

Most professional marketing and sales people all over the world are well aware of Salesforce and how to use it. However, many might not know common Salesforce e-signature uses. Founded in 1999, Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) company that offers applications for analytics, marketing automation, customer service and application development. Salesforce supplies its 150,000+ customers with enterprise applications including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud, Community Cloud, App Cloud and IoT.

Salesforce e-Signature Uses

The company, and its customers have a huge global presence. These customers create thousands of documents, cases, requests and opportunities that necessitate customer contracts and e-Signatures each day. As such, electronic signatures have become almost standard operating procedure due to the digital completion of so many types of business transactions now. In step with Salesforce’s growth, the digital signatures has grown rapidly—from $650 million in transaction in 2016 with projections of $3.5 billion by 2022. Electronic signatures are a natural fit for eCommerce, finserv, banking, insurance and other industries. Typical documents that stem from Salesforce interactions include:

• Business and sales contracts
• Service requests and orders
• Legal documents
• Non-disclosure agreements
• HR documents

Utilizing eSignatures for these types of engagements not only saves time, storage and money but also improves compliance and completion rates. Here are 5 of the best e-signature solutions and use cases for Salesforce you should be considering.

Common Use Case #1: Sales Contracts

With a native Salesforce eSign option, sales reps can process all relevant documentation and contracts easily that are related to each sale. And because the documents are processed electronically, it takes only minutes to complete the transaction instead of waiting days and weeks for hard copy documents to be sent back and forth. It’s natural that sales contracts are a common Salesforce eSign use case because they are the most valuable document for a business and the most frequently signed item. For large enterprises through to small businesses, sales contracts are critical activities for businesses and their Salesforce eSign solutions help facilitate their contract completion. Moreover, global businesses today dictate remote and digital/electronic document exchanges and sales contracts. One industry that has garnered particular traction for eSign practices is consumer and automotive loan origination where disclosures, signatures and contracts are major transactional documents. When using an eSign solution integrated with Salesforce, reps seamlessly integrate customer data to finalize sales processes. They also manage eSignature requests, see the progress and complete the associated documentation from their core interface - Salesforce. Salesforce e-Signature integrations such as this next generation solution from Lightico ensures that all sales-related activities are covered in one interaction - not just the digital signature. Those components typically include full sales-cycle events like completing forms, visualizing products, gathering documents, processing payments and verifying identification.

Common Use Case #2: Customer Onboarding and Forms

For many businesses, their formal customer relationships start when a contract, agreement or other document is signed. Finalizing an agreement hinges on customer approval and signature. But if the paperwork isn’t readily available, there’s a chance that the agreement will fall through the cracks. Too often, deals are delayed or lost because of legacy onboarding processes that rely on paperwork or email. Today, customers expect to be taken care of in the moment. This ‘Netflix’ or ‘Amazon’ one click effect has shortened customers patience, and raised their expectations. Having an onboarding process that delivers instant eSign capabilities for these critical processes not only secures the deal, but also eliminates re-keying of data that has potential errors.

Common Use Case #3: Service Requests

Today’s customers expect problems to be resolved instantly. In an era where customers can tweet, post, chat with the world, waiting for documents to be mailed or emailed seams antiquated. When customers make purchases, make changes, or have questions, they’re eager to remove any bureaucratic elements that can slow down the completion of their transaction. And they expect them to be digital transactions, not slow, error-prone paper processes. Fortunately businesses are graduating to digital exchanges and eSignatures are fast becoming the standard in those transactions. When it comes to documentation, customers want quick access to their documents so that they can complete forms, revision requestions and eSign to be on their way. They don’t appreciate having to sort through emails to find what they need in order to complete a transaction. They expect- no demand- an electronic delivery complete with digitized, mobilized forms to be easy to complete, inclusive of collected documents and then be able to complete the digital signature—all in one interaction. And, with the explosive growth of mobile phones, customers expect these capabilities from their mobile phone. It’s critical for customers to be able to manage all their documentation easily—in real time—on the first call, even with those on their mobile phones. The addition of Salesforce e-Signature capabilities to change documentation helps a business avoid delays and costly cycle times. Ensuring that customer requests are clear and have ‘sign off’ ensure there are no disputes. For example, this is especially true for businesses that make custom products, specific alterations or have particular compliance requirements where the customer sign-off prior to completing the change order to ensure their is adequate knowledge and buy-in to the service request.

Common Use Case #4: Non-Disclosure Agreements

In many businesses it is standard procedure to utilize non-disclosure agreements to protect themselves when engaging outside resources. The traditional pen and paper method to craft a non-disclosure agreement is inconvenient and open to many legal issues. With eSignatures through Salesforce, businesses can have a fully compliant audit trail to ensure each NDA is completed in a timely and auditable manner. This process makes it much easier and legally more secure.

Common Use Case #5: Specific Industry Transactions

There are some industries that are more inclined to use eSign due to the nature of the business and the necessary documents. These businesses are typically juggling between the heavy compliance and regulatory burden, and the competitive pressures of offering a seamless customer experience. With Salesforce eSignatures, these tradeoffs can be lessened. Typically, the industries wrestling with these regulatory requirements and relying on eSignatures include legal, insurance, financial and telecommunications.

• Some common uses of eSignatures in the legal industry include: - Class Action Communications - Legal Retention Agreements - Confidentiality Agreements and Power of Attorney POA documents.
• Insurance companies often use eSignatures on documents such as: - Policy Binding Agreements - Sales and Notifications - Claim Processing Documents (FNOL) - Policy Renewals and Servicing Requests
• Financial institutions use eSign for documents such as: - Account Opening - Changes to Accounts - Payment Terms - Direct Deposits/ACH - Loan Applications and Disclosures.
• Telecommunication companies use eSignatures in the following instances - Make plan changes - Buy new devices - Purchase device protection plan, or financing. - Add new members to an account - Change personal account information.

Salesforce is a massive force in business today. In order to empower sales and marketing teams to boost accelerate their core processes like signing agreements, onboarding new customers, servicing requests and the like, they should leverage e-Signatures directly from Salesforce.