Best eSignature app for startups: How NEEAL uses signNow to support startups with simplified eSigning
While many economies are still struggling to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, startups across the globe are driving change by offering solutions to address post-Covid realities. In this tumultuous time, it’s crucial to provide startups with marketing and financial support to accelerate business recovery. Recent airSlate research suggests that 74% of businesses had to shut down during the pandemic due to not having the tech in place to digitize their existing processes. This is why adopting solutions like eSignature allows for faster business digitization, while also delivering ROI and improving the customer experience. By using signNow’s eSignature app for startups, NEEAL supports businesses in England, offering them simplified eSigning so they can complete their processes remotely.
Customer profile
The North East Enterprise Agency Ltd (NEEAL) is engaged in a number of activities such as business startup support, supporting existing businesses with their growth strategies, providing marketing support, finding proper workspaces in North East England, assistance with financing options, and discovering opportunities for innovations in business.
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Interviewee’s name |
Challenges before leveraging eSignatures
One of the motivations behind shifting to a paperless office and document eSigning for NEEAL was weather conditions and bad roads in certain parts of the region. With frequent rain and snow, it often took hours to get from point A to point B. Because of unpredictable weather conditions, people were spending tremendous amounts of time commuting and often had to reschedule meetings. Thus, switching to eSigning via a Zoom call was a really helpful solution.
NEEAL switched to eSigning back in 2019, several months before the global pandemic and the WFH mode. Their first choice of an eSigning solution was DocuSign which was recommended by the local government and by several local customers as well. However, NEEAL’s initial experience with eSigning was somewhat below expectations:
“We quickly realized DocuSign was not only expensive but also something far greater than what we actually needed. It was a Rolls Royce for us. At the same time, their customer service is pretty poor at times,“
— explains Will when describing why they began looking at alternative solutions.
Best eSignature app for startups: switching to signNow
When analyzing DocuSign alternatives available on the eSignature market back in October-November 2020, NEEAL made their choice in favor of signNow for the following three reasons:
1. Pay per user, not per transaction
When you have 20 or 30 managers in the office who are dealing with piles of paperwork and reporting, paying for a service based on each transaction can become problematic. In fact, a transaction-based pricing policy can directly hinder document workflows, leading to lower productivity, poorer efficiency, and additional delays.
2. Quick and easy setup
Working with startups and quickly growing young businesses always entails some urgency and tight document preparation deadlines. You simply do not have enough time to master sophisticated software with a complex design and an excessive number of extra features under the hood.
That’s why signNow is extremely easy to set up — it didn’t take long before the team at NEEAL learned how to use all the basic functionality. Obtaining a new user license was also fast and effortless, which allowed NEEAL to accelerate the onboarding process for new employees.
3. Simplicity of workflows regardless of the number of signers involved
Overall, NEEAL has two major types of document workflows in their daily operations:
- 2-3-person workflows
- Group signing sessions involving 10-12 people at the same time
signNow is used in both scenarios. With smaller workflows (2-3 signers only), the major benefits appreciated by NEEAL include the ease of arranging eSigning invites and elimination of delays that used to occur due to vacations, business trips, and other personal reasons.
With larger workflows of up to 12 people at the same time, the unbeatable benefit, again, is signNow’s pricing policy. No matter how many people you have in one workflow, or how many documents you have to send out to 12 people at the same time — the monthly/annual price tag doesn’t change.
Thus, NEEAL’s signers do not need to think twice about how to better organize their routine daily operations and instead, can concentrate on what’s really important — supporting businesses on their way to success.
