The ESIGN (United States Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce) Act is a federal law passed in 2000. It grants legal recognition to electronic signatures and records if all parties to a contract choose to use electronic documents and to sign them electronically.
What does this mean for your funeral home? You should be using digital forms and e-signatures. Digital documents are federally legal, unless otherwise specifically stated for a document (like the cremation authorization form in New York). Digital documents will not only make things easier, quicker, and better for your families, but it will save you time and money. Here are 5 reasons why you need to implement this into your funeral home yesterday.
1. It is a Better Customer Experience
In all honesty, this should be the only reason you need to implement digital forms and e-signatures in your funeral home. Your customers are used to doing business online, and their expectations with your funeral home are the same. When someone purchases something from Amazon, it would seem absurd if Amazon required you to print, sign, and fax a credit card authorization form back just to complete the online purchase. If your families knew that they could have signed all their paperwork online, without the need to download, print, sign, and fax their documents, but yet you still made them do that, how do you think they would feel?
With digital documents in your business, your customers can sign contracts online without downloading or installing anything. Seeing as how 90%+ of American adults own a cell phone, there’s no need to force them to use antiquated business practices and complicate the process.
2. It Will Reduce Costs
Paper, ink, and in-person meetings all cost money. Fax machines require phone costs and even more paper and toner. Digital signatures not only reduce costs, but make it extremely easy and space-efficient to store your documents. No need for the big cabinets to store all your paperwork. Everything can be stored and accessed in the cloud.
3. You’ll Get Things Done Quicker
Getting documents signed digitally will be faster. No need to print, no need to find a pen, no need to fax over documents. Get all your documents completed and signed within minutes without your families every having to leave their couch.
4. It’s Safer
Believe it or not, digital signatures provide more security than a faxed signature. Digital signatures are verified by a third-party and tracks the electronic identity of the signer. It serves almost as a digital notary that will track the email, computer address, and exact time and date the document was signed.
A digital copy also allows files to be stored securely, so there is no fear of losing the case file or misplacing the paperwork.
5. It Is More Efficient
Filling out paperwork for families is one of the most tedious, time consuming things in a funeral home. Imagine how much time you would save if this could all be completed as easily as sending an email. Also, no more having to look through different case files to find information for your co-worker’s case. It can all be pulled up on your screen instantly. Not only is this more efficient for the family, but this will free up your time to do the more important tasks on the job.
It’s time to save the trees, stop the faxing, and turn your funeral home into a lean, green, funeral servicing machine!
“Parting Pro has made the arrangement process amazingly convenient and efficient for both our funeral directors and our customers. Instead of waiting for days on signatures, we can get our forms signed immediately.”
“Digital forms ballow us to complete an arrangement in under 15 minutes from almost anywhere.“
Russell Hall, Diablo Valley Cremation & Funeral Services