Month: April 2021

24
Apr
2021

How to Improve Customer Experience with Esignatures

Customer service is an opportunity to exceed your customer expectations - John Jantsch

Did you know that investing in customer experience initiatives has the potential to double your revenue in 36 months?

Don’t be surprised!

Another research by American Express found that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience (CX).

What is customer experience (CX)?

Is it about offering freebies, rewards, coupons, or heavy discounts to make a customer happy?

Not at all! - it is more about self-motivating the customer to do business transactions with the brands in speedy and convenient manner.

So, let’s redefine customer experience, which is “Creating an emotionally satisfying, positive experience with your brand or business, that leaves the customer feeling happy and satisfied that they did business with the brand.”

Why is customer experience important?

We all know companies have everything - the latest technology, lavish showrooms, the costliest hardware & products in the world to attract a customer.

But is it sufficient to build a lasting bond with the customer?

Did we forget an essential ingredient?

Yes!

Sometimes companies stop conveying human emotions connected with customer experience.

An excellent customer experience can be due to multiple reasons found helpful by a customer like helping finalize a product quickly, offering excellent competitive pricing for the products, or exceptional after-sales service to make a customer happy.

A positive customer experience:

- Increases brand loyalty

- Improves brand image

- Better customer engagement

- Boosts organic business growth

- Helps stand out in the competition

- Ensure positive word of mouth publicity

Improving customer experience with electronic signatures

eSignatures significantly improve customer experience by providing blazing fast access to customer services like esigning documents, KYC, customer approvals, Tax return filing, legal services, HR services, and many more. They are popular in the industry for their speed and simplicity. As for businesses, they reduce paperwork, cut short the time in signature and approval of the contracts, workforce hiring, limit purchases of printing devices, and storage of physical documents.

So, how do eSignatures improve customer experience?

  • No more waiting time to access services

According to a study, eSignatures reduce the average document processing time from five days to 37 minutes.

If you want to purchase a mobile sim, apply for a banking loan or sign a crucial document, you don’t need to sign a physical document and wait for weeks or more for the company’s confirmation and access to these services.

You get instant access to the needed services by signing in electronically from your own trusted device and complete the service formalities in no time. The application is instantly verified and accepted by the company. You get full access to the applied services the same business day. Apart from this, it saves you from the lengthy hassles of printing the application & identity document, self-attesting, and mailing it to the company for verification and confirmation.

  • Fully secure to use

Using a physical document for daily business activities brought in many issues like managing, storing, and keeping it safe from getting stolen or forged for misuse. There were frequent cases of the stored documents getting lost or leakage of the customer details.

In contrast, the esignature technology does document management systematically as all your documents are present in the cloud, with no chances of confidential data getting leaked or lost. You can share the document within or outside the professional network safely and securely.

Is eSigning a document safe?

An eSignature solution uses

  • Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) to ensure protection against forgery
  • 256-bit HTTPS advanced encryption is complicated for hackers to breach security

These eSignature security measures confirm that no one is spying on your connection.

Customers or businesses can fully trust esignature solutions to sign online contracts securely, initiate service or key announcements without doubting the source and authenticity of the signed document.

Ensuring a secure business environment helps reinstate customer faith in a brand, encouraging them to do more business transactions without the fear of their identity or confidential data getting stolen for misuse.

  • It helps track your documents

Physical documents are challenging to track. You have to constantly follow up with different stakeholders in the company or with new partners or clients on phone calls, emails & physical visits to know the signed documents’ status and remind other people who have still not signed it.

eSignature helps you make this task easy. Here is how you can easily track and esign the documents using LunarPen

  • Create or upload a document
  • Add signers’ email to decide who receives the document
  • Use LunarPen app to add eSignature box, date & time
  • Send the document for eSignature
  • Use the LunarPen interface to eSign your document
  • Track your document online

Now, no more wondering where the documents are, no more chasing them down, and no more delays. You can track the live status of your documents anytime.

  • Enables self-service for faster response

Customers want a solution for their problems, and they want it fast. The most important attribute of customer experience is fast response time.

How can you respond faster to a customer?

By customer self-service. Do you know that more than 40% of customers prefer self-service over human contacts?

In 2021, self-service is not a choice. It’s an absolute necessity.

It empowers your customers to explore service and find answers on their own.

How eSignature provides Self-servicing benefits to customers in 2021?

  • Faster service: You don’t have to rush to the printer & mail department for printing-scanning-mailing the physical document. One single tap on the eSignature app lets you speed past the create-sign-email cycle in minutes.
  • Less room for error: Even well-trained, experienced professionals make errors in creating and signing a document. When you use eSignature solutions, you create online documents with a lesser probability of mistakes in a shorter time.
  • Customer Satisfaction: As you use eSignature apps on your own, it gives you total command, confidence, and satisfaction in knowing, experiencing, and using the app features.
  • Simplify and modernize the sales process

A traditional purchasing process involves showing multiple product options to the customer. Based on the customer choice, a contract or agreement is worked out between the customer and the business to supply the product and complete the sales process. It is a lengthy process where many terms and conditions are negotiated & renegotiated between the parties before signing the actual agreement.

It’s time to modernize the purchase process!

What if you get a customized agreement, mutually agreed by both parties, without the stress of paperwork?

An eSignature solution helps you eSign the contractual documents instantly using digital devices. You don’t need to travel to sign a document, plus you get a super thrilled and delighted customer impressed with the speed and experience of the digital purchase process. It significantly improves the customer experience as they get the privilege to use the latest technology to execute essential business operations.

Case Study

Amway utilized the speed and efficiency of eSignatures to register new distributors for its products and increase revenue in European markets.

Challenge

The biggest challenge to expand in the European markets was to acquire new independent distributors. As a part of the process, contracts were printed, signed, and sent to prospective distributors for review and then sent back to Amway.

However, multiple contracts were returning to the company with missing information and signature. Returning a document without a signature meant a lot for the company, which meant that contractual terms were not acceptable to the distributor. In that case, the contract had to be sent back to prospective distributors for confirmation again. Apart from this, several agreements were lost in the mail, forcing the company to restart the contract process from scratch.

The manual process wasted a lot of business time, created confusion, and increased loads of manual paperwork.

Solution

Amway decided to change the distributor onboarding model from offline to online model using the esignature solution. It made the contractual signing process faster as distributors got the flexibility to sign contracts on the move using a mobile device.

The expectation from the eSignature solution was to increase the number of signed contracts with the distributors, boost company visibility, revenue, and brand image in the market.

Results

In the first year of deployment, the company signed contracts with 90,000 new distributors.

Results were mind-blowing:

- Improved registration experience for Independent Amway distributors

- Contract completion improved from weeks to seconds

- 50% reduction in administration

- Lowered distributor attrition during registration

The simple, intuitive process gives new independent Amway distributors a positive first impression and significantly reduces the number of potential distributors and prospects leaving the company.

Conclusion

eSignature is a valuable digital tool to boost customer experience and plays an undeniable part in the customer journey to transform a new customer into a qualified lead to generate a sale.

Our suggestion for businesses is to work on a dedicated customer experience strategy that will satisfy customers and turn them into advocates for your product.

At LunarPen, we help businesses build customer trust and loyalty using eSignature solutions.

SIGN UP for a FREE account to make eSignatures an integral part of your business strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can digital customer experience be improved?

One can improve digital customer experience by following these steps:

  • Deep dive into the customer journey to gain insights
  • Observe and analyze customer behavior
  • Check user feedback through multiple channels
  • Gather important suggestions by the customers
  • Try to implement actionable suggestions
  • Focus on self-service to enhance customer experience
  • Take feedback from the customers after changes

How do you measure KPIs for customer experience?

It would be best if you used these KPIs to measure customer experience:

Net Promoter Score (NPS): It consists of two questions and gives only one customer experience-related number needed by the company to know the customer satisfaction level.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): It uses a scale from 1 to 5 to know customer satisfaction. 1 Star means the lowest, and 5 star means the highest.

Customer Effort Score (CES): It has different answers to judge customer experience starting from Very difficult, difficult, Neither, Easy, Very Easy.

Churn Rate: It shows the number of lost customers that have stopped using your product or services.

Retention Rate: It is a measurement of how a business retains customers over a period of time.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): It shows the total amount of money a customer would spend on a product or service during their lifetime.

How do clients sign contracts electronically?

You need to follow these easy steps on LunarPen App to sign contracts electronically:

  • Upload the document from a device or cloud storage
  • Add email ids if you want the signature of other people
  • Add eSignature text box, date, time, and further details in the document
  • eSign the document using a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or other devices
  • Email the document to the recipient

What are the four main areas of digital transformation?

A CEO should focus on these areas of digital transformation:

  • Employee Empowerment
  • Customer Engagement
  • IT infrastructure modernization
  • Innovation of products and services

Posted by Lunar Pen in eSignaure Law, 0 comments
17
Apr
2021

eSignature Laws

Do you know electronically signed documents have the same legal rights due to valid eSignature laws in comparison to the documents signed by a ball pen? Despite this, people suspect if they are permissible by law and are hesitant to use esignatures because they believe it can be forged, misinterpreted, and copied quickly. The hard reality is handwritten signatures can be easily duplicated using different methods adopted by fraudsters like simulation, tracing and freehand. In contrast, electronic signatures have many security and authentication layers to protect the esigned documents along with court-admissible transaction proof backed by the law.

The popularity of esignatures has risen since the year 2000 as world powers have put them on par with handwritten signatures by introducing laws making them legitimate.

To recognize the enforceability of e-signatures:

- India recognized esignatures under the IT Act
- USA recognized ESIGN and UETA
- EU recognized eIDAS Act

Let’s look at the esignature legality in these countries of the world

INDIA

In India, the Information Technology Act 2000 grants the same legal status to electronic and digital signatures as handwritten signatures in Indian law.

Electronic signature

Defined under Section 2(1)(ta) of the IT Act, 2000 as “Authentication of any electronic record by a subscriber using the electronic technique specified in the second schedule and includes a digital signature.”

Chapter III Electronic governance of the IT act grants legal recognition to electronic signatures and electronic governance.

Digital Signature

According to section 2(1)(p) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, a Digital signature means “authentication of any electronic record by a subscriber by means of an electronic method or procedure in accordance with the provisions of section 3”

Section 5 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 gives legal recognition to digital signatures.

Chapter V of the IT act provides these details about securing electronic records and electronic signatures.

Secure electronic record: Where any security procedure has been applied to an electronic record at a specific point of time, then such record shall be deemed to be a secure electronic record from such point of time to the time of verification.

Secure electronic signature: An electronic signature shall be deemed to be a secure electronic signature if -

  • the signature creation data at the time of affixing the signature was under the exclusive control of signatory and no other person.
  • The signature creation data was stored and affixed in such an exclusive manner as may be prescribed.

In case of digital signature, the ―signature creation data means the private key of the subscriber.

How to know if an esignature is valid in India?

Under the IT Act eSignature law, an electronic signature must meet the following requirements to be deemed accurate and lawfully valid:

  • An electronic signature must be unique for each signatory.
  • The signatory must have control over the data used to produce the electronic signature when signing.
  • Any tampering with the affixed electronic signature or the document must be detectable.
  • An audit trail records all the steps taken during the signing process
  • A certifying authority (CA) must issue the signer certificates authorized by the Controller of Certifying Authorities under the IT act

eSignature IT Act impact on business

Saved up to 1.3 hours per transaction in preparing, reviewing & negotiating documents

  • Improved document security & reduced time spent on documents from hours to minutes
  • Faster sales cycles with ready-made templates & document tracking features
  • $11 cost saved per transaction after switching to digital signature
  • Massive reduction in operational expenses by the banking sector

USA

The ESIGN Act was declared a law on 30 June 2023 and defined electronic signature as an “electronic sound, symbol or process attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record”.

The most significant takeaway for contract compliance is that the signature’s electronic representation must be aligned with a contract or other document and adopted by the signatory, by any act, with the intent to be bound.

Following federal preemption, ESIGN law allows esignatures in all fifty US States where the federal law applies. It means it affects people who do online business in these states. The regulation applies both to electronic signatures and electronic records. If the federal government’s law does not apply, every State has electronic signature laws, most of which follow the UETA act.

The UETA Act centres exclusively on electronic business, commercial and government contracts. Compared to the ESIGN law adopted by the US states, the UETA act followed a state-by-state basis. Every State has the power to accept or reject the guidelines present in the act. If there is a conflict between ESIGN and UETA Acts, then the state law is abidable. Right now, forty-seven states adopted UETA, excluding New York, Washington, Illinois, Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

How to check compliance with these Acts?

  • There must be explicit consent to do business electronically
  • Electronic signatures are valid only if parties intend to sign
  • An electronic signature must be associated with the signed document
  • The electronic signature must be attributable to the person signing the document
  • An esigned document must be in the form of an electronic record that the recipient can retain at the delivery time.
  • Presence of checks and measures to know if the document has tampered

Impact of ESIGN Act on businesses

  • Revolutionized the real estate industry by eliminating clunky transactions & customer pain points
  • Armed with electronic signature on tablets, field sales executives observed a 50% reduction in the average no of meetings to acquire new customers.
  • HIPAA compliant eSignature in the healthcare industry made it easy to manage patient records

Impact on the banking industry

  • Reduced the application time from 8 days to 24-48 hours
  • Annual scanning and imaging costs decreased by $1 million
  • 90 per cent reduction in document errors
  • 80 per cent of document handling costs eliminated
  • The entire workflow reduced to just 4 steps
  • Manual back-office operations no longer required

European Union (EU)

The eIDAS act (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services ), also known as Regulation (EU) No. 910/2014 is established by the European Commission to achieve a Digital single market.

It recognized three signature types as electronic signatures, Qualified electronic signatures, Advanced electronic signatures and defines

electronic signatures are “data in electronic form attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic form.”

A qualified electronic signature is an advanced electronic signature created by a suitable electronic signature creation device based on a qualified certificate for electronic signatures.

An advanced electronic signature means an electronic signature that meets the requirements set out in Article 26 of the eIDAS Act.

The purpose of this eSignature law is very clear from the first paragraph of the act “Building trust in the online environment is the key to economic and social development. Lack of trust, in particular, because of a perceived lack of legal certainty, makes consumers, businesses and public authorities hesitate to carry out transactions electronically and to adopt new services.”

The regulation seeks to enhance trust in electronic transactions by providing a common foundation for secure electronic transactions between citizens, businesses and public authorities to increase the effectiveness of private and public online services, ecommerce, online companies in the European Union.

How to check compliance with eIDAS Act?

Electronic signature: The electronic signature must be

  • Applied by the person associated with the signature
  • Involved in a manner that demonstrates the intent of the signer
  • Associated with the document or data the signer intended to sign

Advanced Electronic Signatures (AES): It must

  • Be uniquely linked to the signer
  • Identify the signer
  • Be under the sole control of the signer
  • Detect changes to the data after the application of AES

Qualified Electronic Signature: It must be

  • Created using a QES creation device
  • Supported by a qualified certificate

What does the eIDAS Act mean for businesses in the EU?

The growing use of electronic Identification schemes (eIDs) will save EU businesses worth 11 Billion Euros every year. It also benefits industries throughout the EU.

Financial Sector: One of the biggest beneficiaries of this act is the financial sector allowing eIDs and trust services to use KYC for quick onboarding of the customers. Thanks to eIDAS solutions, all processes are done online in a highly secure manner.

Retail Sector: Examples of how the online retail sector uses eID and trust services:

  • Customers buying restricted or high-value products use eID for thorough identification tests.
  • eSignatures & etimestamps save money by streamlining the processes improving document tracking.
  • Use of certified website authentication certificates to increase consumer confidence in online retail websites & prevent data phishing.

Transport Sector: Examples of how the transportation sector used eID and trust services:

  • Customers use eID and trust services to prove their identity, provide a safe log-in to the service
  • eTimestamps highlight transparency where several carriers are involved
  • Use of eSeals on essential documents to verify their origin & integrity while reducing reliance on paper-based documents

Lunarpen eSignatures comply with all eSignature laws with strict protection and authentication standards. It is legally valid for doing all online business transactions safely and securely.

SIGN UP Now to be a part of LunarPen family.

Conclusion

We have observed and understood eSignature laws in all of these countries. If we notice, the meaning and usage of electronic signature laws are altogether the same in every part of the world. These laws are designed with only one thing in mind- to make life easier for people, cut short the steps in manual processing of services, increase digital adoption, and ensure faster alignment with everyday activities supporting tremendous business growth. eSignature laws are the stepping stones to digital transformation- your gateway to a limitless world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are electronic signatures legally enforceable?

Electronic signatures are valid in India, the US & other major countries of the world as eSignature laws are enforceable in the form of the IT Act, ESIGN Act, eIDAS Act, and a lot more. These laws are responsible for making eSignature valid in each of these countries.

What is the law on electronic signatures?

Every country has its eSignature law clarifying the definition and usage of electronic signature and digital signature. You can read the above for detailed information about different eSignature laws.

Is LunarPen eSignature legal in Europe and US?

LunarPen eSignature is fully compliant with the eIDAS regulation in Europe and the ESIGN Act in the US, making it legal to do business and online transactions in both of the countries.

Is an electronically signed document legal?

As per the different eSignature laws in the world, an eSigned document is legal if it meets the defined conditions described in each of the laws.

What constitutes a legal electronic signature?

A legal electronic signature must have evidence of the signer’s intent and consent to sign the document. This is made possible if the subscriber takes positive action such as using an ePen, Smartphone, Tablet, mouse, or a keyboard to create the eSignature and electronically sign the document.

Posted by Lunar Pen in eSignaure Law, 0 comments
10
Apr
2021

Top Business Challenges Solved by E Signature

Creating, signing and organizing physical documents are a never-ending task. All of us have been through the time-consuming process of mailing and retrieving hard copies of vital documents such as applications and contracts that include your actual handwriting signature. If copying, mailing, and using multiple paper sheets with separate copies weren’t bad enough for the world and the environment, imagine what would be. In that case, the business is also extremely risky and vulnerable in terms of the authenticity of those signatures.

Since the conventional contract signing process is both time-consuming and expensive for the firms and the customers, Electronic signatures, which substitute traditional signatures on paper, are being proposed or adopted by a growing number of businesses.

An electronic signature solution has the power to change the way you conduct business and pave the way for improved profit and creativity.

Discover these top business challenges that you can solve with esignatures.

These days’ people are unwilling to wait even for a minute to get things done. They instantly want results in their hands after making payment for the business solution. Modern business practices help deliver quality products on time securely without compromising on the customer experience.

Here are the expectations from modern business practices:

- Speed

- Security

- Authenticity

- Easy usage

- Reduces the process steps

- Provides a competitive advantage

- Eliminates physical presence of a person

eSignatures complement modern business practices in a big way as they are easy to integrate seamlessly into organizations’ existing business processes. You don’t need to dust off your printer cum fax machine to copy and scan the documents or send someone around the town to sign a stack of papers.

Say goodbye to all the manual delays and errors in creating, editing, authenticating, and signing the documents. By using eSignature apps, businesses can complete their contract deals quickly and safely by going online.

  • Document Traceability:

You get a call from the top company management to find out the details of a particular document. Finding that one document in a pile of thousands of documents is an arduous task and a sheer wastage of employee productivity, potential, and business hours.

What if you could find the required documents in a matter of a few seconds without involving your employee?

eSignature helps you trace and ensures transparency, reliability, and evidential validity of your paperless records deposited in secure cloud repositories without having to sweat or divert your attention away from your primary task.

Choosing the correct electronic or digital signature solution means that you and your clients can email, accept, and monitor documents by notifying them when the recipient opens and signs the documents. As a result, both parties will go ahead with the business deal’s execution in no time.

  • Enhance Security:

Using electronic signatures removes the need to chase piles of paper and ensures enhanced security for the signed documents as one of the critical elements of using esignature is the ability to prove the signing party’s identity. You cannot use an electronic signature app without verifying your identity. In the case of a contract or agreement, it also shows that both parties agree by the esigned contract.

The eSignature app lets you keep track of the identity of the person accessing & reading the document and instantly notifying whenever the verified receiver signs it. This additional oversight is essential for the protection of personal information.

Electronic signatures use a digital storage solution backed by data encryption mechanisms, user authentication, and secure repositories to hold contracts which are a better option than storing them in a filing cabinet. It prevents the stored document from getting stolen, copied, getting tampered or damaged due to mishandling.

How can businesses use electronic signature apps more securely?

Businesses can use the e-signature network to deliver documents to various clients for signing. One must assign the document a name on an electronic signature app, upload it, and add signer information. However, before sending the contract to the recipient, you must use text boxes to indicate places on the document that the client must sign with either initials or signatures.

To sign online documents, the customer can use a smartphone or other signature recording devices or apps. When your client has finished signing and clicks the Finish button, the sender gets a message stating that their client has completed the paper signing process.

  • Status of the documents

Now you don’t have to waste time in follow-ups with the customer for knowing the document clearance status. The dilemma stage to speak, call, remind, communicate, schedule or reschedule a meeting with the customer for signing the document is over.

Using an electronic signature or a digital signature, you quickly track if the client or the customer has signed the document or is still pending.

The document status monitoring feature is helpful for business users who have hectic schedules. Furthermore, you can check where each document is in the signature process at any moment.

  • Improving speed:

The manual process of gathering signatures is a daunting task. You must run from door to door to meet the clients and seek their appointment for signing the documents. Sometimes you may even have to waste an entire day waiting for the client. It affects employee productivity in a big way as other prioritized tasks take a backseat.

On the other hand, an electronic signature solution helps you to circumvent the inefficient download-print-sign-scan-email loop. Without ever leaving the submission, you can receive the signature in seconds and the paperwork returned to the requester. Consequently, the turnaround period shortens.

  • Customer Experience

96% of customers say customer service is vital in their choice of loyalty to a brand.

Companies that excel at customer service have 1.5 times more committed staff than less customer-focused companies. Employee participation improves by 20% on average in businesses that enhance their consumer service.

90% of CEOs agree the customer has the most significant effect on their company.

How electronic signatures improve customer experience?

eSignature allows you to:

Simplify the purchasing process:

The consumer signs the contract using electronic signatures as soon as they agree on your product or service, without any delays or waiting.

Customer loyalty skyrockets when they save hefty travel costs and do not have to fly to sign a contract, mail signed documents back, or print and scan a signed document to deliver by email.

They can log in to the esignature app in seconds from any computer or portable device online and complete the contract without being physically present.

Modernize the purchasing process:

You meet customers’ digital needs by using electronic signature solutions. Customers have become accustomed to the speed, convenience & safety of digital transactions.

You won’t have to go through any more time-consuming paper procedures for electronic signatures as all formalities are completed electronically in just a few minutes. It projects a new and forward-thinking vision of a business that values its customers’ time.

Conclusion

Electronic signatures are gradually bringing much-needed changes in business processes around the world. They have made daily interactions between businesses, individuals, and public organizations much easier.

It’s no wonder that esignatures are becoming an important part of the digital transformation strategy valuing business collaboration. To achieve a competitive advantage, it is necessary to implement an effective digital transition strategy. However, without an eSignature platform, no digital transformation strategy is complete. The advantages of esignatures include increased productivity and lower costs along with enhanced user experience.

Begin your digital transformation journey by implementing eSignatures today.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of electronic signature?

You would be glad to know about these astounding benefits of electronic signatures:

  • Enhanced security for day to day business operations
  • Very easy to use and takes less time to implement
  • Paperless workflow means no need to print-sign-scan
  • Get access to centralized document storage
  • Better workflow tracking with esignature apps
  • Increase collaboration and get projects moving
  • Lower transaction costs due to fewer chances of human errors

Is electronic signature acceptable in businesses?

Electronic signatures, like handwritten paper and pen signatures, are legally recognized, registered, and accepted by companies all over the world. The audit trail, which is linked to the electronic signature, makes it more appropriate in the event of a legal dispute and provide a detailed record of the usage of electronic signature in the documents.

Can a company sign electronically?

Yes, a company can sign a document electronically through an appointed and approved representative.

What documents cannot be signed electronically?

You cannot sign these documents electronically:

  • Wills, Deeds, and Leases
  • Papers for adoption
  • Divorce documents
  • Orders of the Court
  • Notices of termination of work (leases, utility, etc.)
  • Repossession notifications
  • Foreclosure notice
  • An eviction notice
  • Notices of product recalls

How do I verify an electronic signature?

When you get a signed document, you may want to verify the signer and the signed material by validating the signatures.

Authenticity checking confirms that the signer’s certificate and its parent certificates are available in the valuator’s trusted identities list.

Document integrity verification confirms that the signed material has not changed since it was signed. If the content of the document changes, document integrity review confirms if the content changed in a way permitted by the signer.

Posted by Lunar Pen in eSignaure Law, 0 comments
03
Apr
2021

How are electronic signatures better than handwritten signatures?

Companies generate a lot of paperwork! Too much of it reduces your business efficiency, slows down data collection, storage, and retrieval, increases chances of errors, & has security issues. As more and more businesses automate their processes, the need to evolve from a handwritten signature to an electronic signature becomes increasingly crucial, fuelled by customers’ digital presence, demanding the availability of services from anytime, anywhere.

Handwritten signatures are swiftly getting replaced by electronic signatures worldwide due to their ease of use, quick return on investment, time saved on manual processing, speed, security, and verification by governments, banks, and regulatory authorities.

You can see the sharp surge in popularity for electronic signatures compared to handwritten signatures as per the latest trending data from Google.

Source: Google Trends

So, what makes electronic signatures better than handwritten signatures? Let’s find it out.

Supports Work from Home:

From public transport struggles to global health concerns, sometimes things get in the way of getting to the office and forcing you to remain at home.

How to make sure that your contracts and agreements do not get affected if you work from home?

Now, we live in an era when companies have made work from home compulsory. We look at some of the different ways that electronic signatures help keep your company going forward, no matter where you are or what department you work in.

- Close deals much faster as you don’t have to rush to the client physically for esigning the document

- Helps in employee hiring by automating & accelerating the employee agreement process

- Improves governance by centralizing the storage & management of all signed versions of the documents.

How to use electronic signatures while working from home?

You only need to install the esignature app on your device, connect with other parties to use the same. You would be able to create new documents online by uploading or using readymade templates. After that, you add email ids of signees needed for esigning the document by drawing, uploading, or typing the signature. Finally, you can send the document securely to clients, colleagues and speed up business processes without being present in offices.

Money and Time Savings:

Do you know that an organization spends 15% of its revenue creating, managing & distributing paper files for documentation?

Going paperless and adopting e signatures in a business helps you in so many ways. It restricts resources, workforce, and hardware equipment needed for procuring, printing, scanning, and mailing signed documents. The frees up time, allowing you to focus on essential tasks, saves processing time, and increases business response time, encouraging more cash flow in the industry.

Digital processes help fast-track business transformation by automating document flow, minimizes repetitive tasks to replace the time-consuming processes involved in manual capturing of data, re-entering data on machines, scanning, and storing it. It helps your team serve the customers more efficiently and create memorable experiences for them.

Electronic signatures need fewer resources like ink, paper, and postage resources. They support instant digitization of the business approval process. You don’t need to be in the office to prepare and esign a document. All necessary documents are ready online and forwarded to other signees in the online network. Electronic signatures apps empower you to access and esign a document using tablets, smart phones & laptops. So, you save a lot of time spent getting the document signed and sharing it with respective stakeholders without delay.

Enhanced Security:

A handwritten signature can’t assure you that the original document is signed by a genuine person as fraudsters quickly forge the signatures. Also, it is difficult to identify and authenticate the original signature from the fake ones.

On the contrary, electronic signatures only allow relevant invited parties to esign a document. If an online form needs esignature from other signees, the signer adds the signees’ email ids to access and esign the record on an esignature app.

Here are the details of the secure process of sending a document for esignature with the LunarPen app

  • Receive an email notification to sign a document on the esignature app
  • Go to the email and view the document shared for esigning
  • Verify the identity of the signee before esigning a document
  • Please review the document before signing it
  • Draw, write, or upload the signature
  • eSign the document securely

Electronic Record:

It is not easy to track changes in the document with a handwritten signature.

eSignatures comes with an audit trail feature to track every change in the document and capture details of when the document is opened, changed, viewed, and signed by a verified user. Audit trails maintain system activity and user activity records. It assists in detecting performance problems, flaws in applications, and security violations.

LunarPen audit trail helps you with all the tools to access, edit, send and sign the documents securely using the industry standard 256 bit HTTPS encryption. You can track all the details of the document right from

  • The time on which a user created the document
  • When the signee receives the document
  • When the signee consents to esign the document
  • When other stakeholders receive esigned document

Saves Environment

Around 40% of the world’s harvested trees produce papers. Even though the paper is recyclable, an A4 size paper requires 10 liters of water per sheet and emits methane, a greenhouse gas on rotting. Industry research firm Gartner estimates that as much as 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, copying, scanning, storing, transporting, and maintaining information files. Now you can realize the hidden costs of doing a handwritten signature.

Using an esignature for official work ensures:

  • No chopping down of trees for paper production
  • No paper wastage due to electronic transfer of data
  • Protects natural habitat of animals and earth’s natural biodiversity
  • Minimal usage of natural resources like water for paper production
  • Reduction in carbon footprint as esigned data is accessible from anywhere
  • Reduces electronic waste as you don’t have to buy printing machines

Indestructible Documents

Documents with handwritten signatures are prone to destruction due to mishandling, workplace accidents and can be easily lost, damaged, or forged. This forces the company and its workforce to leave the current prioritized task, trace the document, start every related business process from scratch, and waste valuable business hours.

Electronic signatures give a massive advantage to your business:

  • It is difficult to destroy documents in electronic format
  • Secure cloud servers ensure data is never misplaced
  • eSigned information is challenging to tamper and duplicate

Conclusion

There are many crucial business processes requiring signatures, such as the approval of contracts, invoices, and employee evaluation forms. Handwritten signatures slow down these processes as they are dependent on the exchange of paper and the signatory’s presence. Now you can see why electronic signatures fit better in modern business practices than handwritten signatures. They flawlessly integrate into an organization’s business processes and don’t depend on geographical boundaries and a person’s physical availability. They complement businesses in need of digital transformation, speed, safety, and security. Use the LunarPen to Fastrack and turnaround day-to-day business processes in a single click.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an electronic signature an original signature?

An electronic signature is just like an original signature done by the signer on an electronic device rather than on paper. Pens create physical signatures, while ePen, mouse, tablet, and smartphone create electronic signatures. They have the same legality as that of a physically signed document. As many as 60 countries have passed laws to make electronic signatures fully legal and permissible by law. e-signatures are legally valid in India for over 18 years. The Information Technology Act (IT Act), passed in 2000, granted e-signatures the same legal status as handwritten signatures.

What is the difference between a digital signature and an electronic signature?

Key differences between a digital signature and an electronic signature are:

Usage: Digital signatures are used for securing a document from tampering while an electronic signature is used for verifying a document

Signature creation: You have to seek permission from a certification authority for using a digital signature While an electronic signature is done as per the intention of the signatory.

Authentication: Digital signatures use certificate based digital ids while an electronic signature verifies identity through email, OTP, phone pin etc.

What qualifies as an electronic signature?

The ESIGN act defines electronic signatures as “An electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.” The versatility of its definition allows LunarPen to offer multiple solutions to capture an electronic signature using a smartphone, computer, or any portable device.

A qualified electronic signature (QES) includes all the secure features like

- Ability to identify and link its signatory

- Allowing the signatory to access & control keys for creating an electronic signature
- Identify if the data is tampered after its accompanying message has been signed

What does an electronic signature looks like?

You have the sole authority to decide the look and feel of your electronic signature. Most electronic signatures look like handwritten signatures. When you create an esignature with LunarPen, you have the option to

  • Draw your esignature using mouse
  • Type the esignature with a keyboard
  • Write signature on the touch screen
  • Upload esignature into LunarPen account
Posted by Lunar Pen in eSignaure Law, 0 comments