For generations, we’ve been familiar with the traditional, wet signature. However, at Connective/Nitro we believe that we are the last generation to actively sign a document with a pen on paper. Give us 5 minutes of your time and we will give you 5 reasons for choosing an electronic signature over a wet signature.
What's the difference between an electronic signature and a digital signature?
First things first. Let’s quickly define the difference between an electronic signature and a digital signature.
An electronic signature is the digital counterpart of the handwritten version in the offline world. It is an efficient, verifiable, and legally binding way to get approval on electronic documents. Just like a wet signature, legally, it captures a person’s intent to agree with a document. You may have noticed that the terms electronic signatures and digital signatures are used interchangeably.
However, there is a difference. A digital signature is always an electronic signature while an electronic signature is not always a digital signature.
The difference is that a digital signature relies on a cryptography-based technology which provides an extra level of security and integrity of the document. An electronic signature, on the other hand, can be merely the image of your signature pasted in a Word document. It can even be your mail signature. You can always check out our latest blog about this topic here.
Now on to what you really want to know.
Our 5 reasons for choosing electronic signatures over wet signatures
1. Stop losing valuable time
Time is money, and that is a fact!
Electronically signing your documents diminishes the needed time drastically. As in a lot of areas, traditional methods are extremely time-consuming.
Both sending the documents via post or via email isn’t optimized anymore for today’s volatile, ever-changing world. Think about printing, signing, dating, scanning, and emailing back the signed document. This even neglects the aspect of certain tasks being passed on to other co-workers, which would cause even more delay.
Using an electronic signature solution to handle your business documents ensures that you’re completing transactions in a matter of minutes instead of days or even weeks.
2. Save money
You’ll not only gain time, but also save a ton of money by implementing electronic signatures into your day-to-day processes. Every cent you spend on shipping, travelling, printing, or mailing can be used to fund more productive tasks.
Instead of printing bundles of documents and storing them in a filing cabinet for future reference, you can share, store and archive them electronically. You’ll save physical space and eliminate printer maintenance and paper costs. In our books, that’s a win-win situation.
3. Improve user experience
In our modern era, the early bird catches the worm. Companies who try to create the best experience for their customers will attain a lasting competitive advantage. Customers are the most important part of a business and thus must be treated as such: they expect fast, convenient, technology-based, modern experiences.
An electronic signature solution can offer the exact digital alternative your customers need.
Provide your customers with a user-friendly and easy solution for signing required documentation. Don’t force them into complex situations which require having printers, scanners and other tools at their disposal.
Offer them a solution that let’s them instantly do what is necessary by means of a tool that everyone owns: a laptop or smartphone.
4. Improve security
Several aspects are vital to ensure the correct and secure processing of a signed document. The security of a signed document is potentially the most important requirement when optimizing the business process.
Even though often used, wet signatures aren’t as safe or secure as they are presumed to be. They don’t come with a report that tells you what happened to a document prior, during and after signing. There is no possibility to directly trace the signature back to where and by whom it was signed.
Electronic signatures on the other hand, provide a fitting answer to these questions: the Audit trail. This tool is an important contribution to the security aspect and can provide assurance and proof when the validity of a signature or document is questioned.
Moreover, Connective eSignatures has been awarded with some of the most stringent certificates in the business. The leading authorities in the industry have deemed our tool sufficiently advanced and qualified to bless them with these exceptional seals of quality.
More information is available in our Trust Center.
5. Be future-proof
Have you ever lost valuable papers? Don’t remember where you stored your contracts?
Say goodbye to administrative clutter with a future-proof electronic signature solution with an integrated archiving system. There is no more risk of losing or corrupting physical documents with a wet signature, when they are signed and stored digitally.
So, to summarize, electronic signatures:
- Stop you from losing valuable time
- Save you money
- Improve your customer’s user experience
- Improve document & signature security
- Ensure your company is future-proof
Why should we switch to electronic signatures?
There are a lot of disadvantages inherent to the use of a wet signature. Just one example is that each person signing the document needs to be physically present.
In a globalized world characterized by fading borders and an international economy, it goes without saying that this is a quite a hassle and does not always come easy.
Nevertheless, some organizations – both governmental institutions as well as private businesses – prefer this method instead of keeping up with the times. Given the fact that more modern solutions have exactly the same legal value and carry the same weight as the tradition pen and paper, it’s quite astonishing that not all company’s are willing to make the switch.
Why hesitate? Talk to one of our experts. They can show you just what our electronic signature solution can do and elaborate on the numerous benefits it brings for you, your customers and your transactions.
Questions? Don't hesitate to contact us!
