Top questions every buyer should ask their eSignature vendor
A lot is at stake when moving your signing workflows into the digital domain. That’s why choosing the right eSignature solution and provider is important.
When done right, eSignatures can bring tremendous efficiency gains, cost savings, and increased compliance to your organization - not to mention happier customers, partners, and employees as they’re empowered to conveniently sign anytime, anywhere, on any device.
When done wrong, however, it can lead to poor user adoption and a high total cost of ownership.
Naturally, every electronic signature vendor will promise you that they can deliver all the benefits of eSignatures without any of the risks. And all their claims may look good on paper. But how do you know for certain that what they promise will materialize?
Questions every buyer should ask
Here are 10 questions every buyer should ask their eSignature vendor to gage whether they can deliver on their promise of making you successful with eSignatures in the short and long term.
Industry customers
- How many customers does the electronic signature provider have in your industry?
- How many of those use the solution for similar workflows as you’re looking to automate (or in the same channels)?
Live deployments
- What percentage of the e signature provider’s customers have gone live with their project?
- What is delaying or preventing the others from going live?
- How similar is their situation to yours?
Value metrics
- What ROI or benefits have their customers achieved in terms of reduction in drop-off rates, time to complete signed documents, errors, cost, non-compliance, and other factors?
- What impact has that had on their operations or revenues?
User volume
- How many people are using the eSignature solution to send or sign documents?
- What percentage of those users are internal within the company versus external (customers and partners)?
User adoption
- What percentage of all potential users have adopted the eSignature solution?
- What adoption rates does the vendor recommend as a benchmark for your specific process/channel?
- Is the vendor able to share industry-specific adoption best practices?
- What is delaying or preventing all users from adopting the solution?
Document volume
- How many documents are being signed each year using the eSignature provider’s solution?
- What percentage of those documents represent high-volume transactions that are complex or highly regulated?
Customer longevity
- How long have customers been with the eSignature provider?
- How many customers have been with the provider more than one year? More than five years? More than 10 years?
Customer retention
- What percentage of the eSignature provider’s customers have they retained? Why did they lose some customers? How similar is their situation to yours?
Usage growth
- How much, on average, do customers grow their use of the provider’s electronic signature solution each year?
- How many customers began using their solution in one area of their business and then expanded to another area?
- How many customers are using their solution across their entire organization?
Customer reviews
- How many positive customer reviews does the eSignature provider have?
- How many negative customer reviews does the eSignature provider have?
- What are the recurring themes that customers are complaining about?
The bottom line
You’ve spent years improving your operational efficiency and making it easier for your customers and partners to do business with you. The eSignature solution you choose should propel your operations to the next level, not undermine your efforts and put you at risk.
That’s why vendors have to do more than just explain how they plan to make your eSignature project successful. They need to provide proof points so that you can confidently assess whether they are the right partner for your organization or not.
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