There are really only two ways to capture signatures in the field: on paper or digitally. Technology has made both of these methods quite simple but is one way better than the other?
Capturing Customer Signatures on Paper
A pen and paper is a tried and true way to receive a customer’s signature. When the job has been completed and the customer is signing off on it, they find a certain satisfaction in holding a physical pen while doing so. And not everybody is fond of using technology – keep in mind that some people downright distrust it.
The problem is, in any situation where you need a physical copy of something and you’ve got workers in the field, you run the risk of losing that information. While it may not happen often, this situation can turn into a huge headache for everybody involved. Without the customer’s signature, you aren’t able to proceed in billing them. Your workers have to return to the site, which is a waste of time and money.
Capturing Customer Signatures Electronically
People are, at this point in time, much more comfortable with the use of technology in their daily lives. In many ways, the physical signature is becoming a thing of the past except for some specific legal documents. Digital signatures make things easier in a lot of ways. The employee can collect customer signature using smart phones, by installing a signature capture app. These signatures can be collected and stored in cloud-based mobile workforce managements solution. The modern mobile workforce management platforms also provides other features such as real-time mobile workforce tracking for accountability & compliance, mobile time clock with gps and mobile time card to help employees clock in clock out and record their time and attendance. These features can save you thousands of dollars in payroll and also save you from the headache during the payroll week.
Also, when the signature your field workers are collecting is being stored in a cloud-based system, there’s no need to worry about losing the information, even if something goes horribly wrong with your device.
One minor benefit of capturing customers’ signatures electronically is that they will view your company as modern and up-to-date. More and more, digital signature capture is becoming the norm. And that means that companies who don’t offer the ability to capture signatures electronically may find that customers are put off by their “old-fashioned” methods.
The Verdict
The excellent news is that both of these methods work equally well with allGeo. Naturally, we recommend that you work with electronic signatures but that’s only because it’s the slightly easier of the two methods. And yes, if you pick a modern mobile workforce management solution, you’ll have a wide range of features (clock in clock out, photo capture, real-time location etc) that will optimize business operations and boot productivity & savings.
How does capturing signatures on paper work then? Files can be attached to each job, including documents containing job information and photos (for example, many allGeo users will take before and after photos of the job they’re working on both to establish what work needs to be done and to prove that the work has been completed according to their proposal/ invoice). Once your worker in the field has received the customer’s signature, the next step is to take a photo of the signed document. Once the photo is taken, they need simply to attach it to the job.
On the other hand, if the customer is not averse to technology, the electronic signature can easily be captured on the job screen and once received, will be available on the cloud.
For more information about allGeo and how we can simplify and streamline your company’s interaction with your customers, visit allgeo.com or call 1 415-49-MYGEO (69436).
