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Customers 

Fortune 500 Financial Services Provider

Prior to implementing electronic signatures, account managers spent nearly 50 percent of their time tracking down outstanding 401K applications and ensuring that customers received, reviewed, signed and returned the necessary paperwork. Silanis' solution eliminated this bottleneck and allowed the sales team to focus their efforts on building new business. This company was also able to eliminate the cost of two overnight courier packages, saving the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. This brought their online application process down from fourteen days to a matter of hours.


Full Success Story

Automating the 401k Application Process



The Problem
As a leading provider of 401(k) plans, this Silanis client was seeking to make improvements in the areas of employee productivity, sales, and processing. In sales, the company needed to reduce the time their account managers were spending babysitting the process, rather than selling to new customers. Some account managers were spending up to 50% of their time tracking paper and ensuring that the customer had received, reviewed, signed, and returned their documents.

In addition to improving productivity, our client was able to re-direct up to 50% of its account managers’ time back into selling. Many companies face similar productivity issues due to reliance on outdated, manual processes, and can realize a direct increase in revenue by refocusing the efforts of the sales team. In processing, our client needed to reduce the time and expense associated with application package delivery and return. Typically, prospects received their documents via courier. Just the delivery of these packages would cost our client more than $10. Additionally, due to the complex nature of the information being delivered, the prospect would put off the task of reviewing and signing the documents.

This resulted in a high attrition rate, and extended cycle times, as most packages were not returned for 14 days or more, even with the account manager manually driving the process. The old process was very manual and required stringent quality assurance since approximately 5% of the packages had to go out to the customer again for approval due to errors in the document, information changes, or missing signatures on some forms.

Another challenge for the organization was the management of the paper packages. The application package was created electronically and printed to paper for it to be sent to the customer for approval. Once the document was approved, it was then returned to the company, checked by the Quality Assurance Department, and scanned back into the system for electronic storage. During this process, the scanning added to the cost of processing the application..

The Challenges
In evaluating new technology that could enhance the 401(k) application process, this company faced several challenges. Since the process involved transactions with consumers, it was critical that the solution be easy-to-use, intuitive, and compliant with E-SIGN and UETA. As well, it needed to provide strong legal enforceability.

This combination of needs eliminated a number of technologies that required control over the signer’s desktop, or deployment of hardware or software for signing. Our client wanted a solution that could be integrated into a web portal to provide ready access for consumers anytime and anywhere. The vision was to simply have customers log into the web portal, access their documents, sign them online, and submit them immediately in electronic format for processing.

The Solution
After evaluating a number of solutions, the company settled on Silanis’ ApproveIt Web Server. A server-based e-transaction solution, the ApproveIt Web Server allows consumers to electronically approve and sign documents through a web browser without the use of any additional hardware or software. The product supports the application of multiple customer signatures in a single document, as well as the agent representative's signature.

This client chose Silanis’ solutions because it provided the best document security and ease-of-use. Silanis’ Intelligent Signature technology, which is at the heart of all of our products, provides instant and visible proof of any modification to a signed document. A detailed audit trail is also embedded into the document to show the sequence of events in the approval process.

The Benefits
Shortly after deploying Silanis’ solutions, this Fortune 500 Financial Services Provider realized significant results. Approval times on application packages were reduced from 14 days to just a matter of hours. Courier charges, which previously added up to $10 per application, have been virtually eliminated. Scanning costs for completed applications, that were adding $5-6 per application, have also been eliminated. The document now stays in electronic format throughout the entire routing process eliminating the need for both scanning and paper process management. In addition to pure cost savings, this company was also able to streamline processes and significantly improve productivity.

By eliminating outdated, manual processes, the company was able to re-focus their account manager’s time back into selling. This shift provides a direct impact on revenue generation, as time is devoted to acquiring customers rather than managing processes. The introduction of electronic approvals into the 401(k) application process has provided our client with a significant competitive advantage in a very competitive market.