Table of contents:
- How Long Does it Take Your Sales Department to Sign Documents?
- Why Automate the Sales Document Tracking and Signing Process in Pipedrive?
- Document Tracking Software Integrations for Pipedrive
- How Can Automaly Help Set Up the Document Tracking and Signing Process in Pipedrive?
- Conclusion
Statistics show that it takes about 5 days to obtain a document signature the traditional way; mailing the document to the recipient, sign it, and send it back to you. However, it would only take an average of 37 minutes to get the same signature with digital document signing.
Closing a new deal in a conventional way can be complicated. There are so many little details to be agreed on, and it takes time to get documents signed off. If you’re like most businesses, your sales department may have a lot of red tape when approving and signing documents. Something as simple as an employment contract can become bogged down in bureaucracy.
This article will help you understand how Pipedrive can automate signing various contracts, proposals, and Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to enjoy quicker turnaround times.
How Long Does it Take Your Sales Department to Sign Documents?
Salespeople spend roughly half an hour on administrative work and 7.6% of their time on paperwork. Of course, this will depend on the business’s nature, the team’s size, and any other agreements and conditions. Here’s a brief glimpse of how much time different documents take to process in the sales department:
Approving and Signing a Sales Contract
A sales contract marks an agreement between a buyer and seller and must be signed to put it into legal effect. There are many departments and stakeholders involved in the negotiation process. As a result, getting the contract signed by all the stakeholders can take 4-6 weeks to get it ready for execution.
Approving and Signing a Proposal
The negotiations and proposal process can take weeks, if not months (or even years in some cases) before a client signs a proposal. If you’re in sales, you must invest much time in the proposal process. You need to understand your client’s needs, and you need to understand what role your company’s product or service offerings will play in their needs.
Signing NDAs
NDAs protect trade secrets and confidential property. If you have a big company or are in a highly competitive field, you almost definitely have NDAs on the books with your clients. These documents can take 30 days, weeks, months, or even years to sign.
Most sales contracts and proposals take weeks or months to get approved and signed off on. This is especially true if your sales department uses a template for each document type. Contracts usually take less than a week to get approved, but they can take months to get signed.
Smart salespeople know this.
They also know that the longer you wait, the bigger the opportunity for the competitor to strike and the higher the chances of losing the deal. And that’s where automated sales document tracking and signing come in.
Why Automate the Sales Document Tracking and Signing Process in Pipedrive?
Sales teams are always under pressure to drive more leads, close deals faster, and get results as soon as possible. As a sales management system focused on streamlining sales processes from lead generation to managing sales pipelines, Pipedrive gives its users plenty of tools for automating their workflows.
Automating the tracking and signing of sales documents in Pipedrive can help you streamline the sales process by reducing manual steps, eliminating redundant information input, and increasing transparency.
That said, here are more detailed reasons to automate the document signing process:
Streamline Your Sales Process
Automating your sales document tracking and signing process can help you streamline and make it more efficient — giving your sales reps the time and space they need to close more deals. In turn, increased efficiency in the sales process enables you to close more deals in less time and scale your sales volume to meet your company’s growth goals.
Reduce Manual Steps for Faster Lead Generation
Manually tracking, which leads have signed a contract or other crucial documents, is time-consuming and often prone to human error. Automating sales document tracking can help you reduce manual steps and make lead generation quicker, less error-prone, and more efficient
Eliminate Redundant Information Input
Sales teams often spend more time inputting redundant information than closing deals — and sales documents are often the culprit. If your sales reps manually track sales documents, they may need to manually record contract/agreement terms, pricing details, service level agreements, etc.
Automating your sales document tracking and signing process can help you eliminate redundant information input — and save your sales reps valuable time they can use to close more deals.
Increase Transparency and Visibility of Lead Status Changes
Transparency is an important part of any sales process. By automating your sales document tracking and signing process, you can increase the transparency of your sales process — helping your sales leads understand how the process works and where they’re at in the sales cycle.
Automating your sales document tracking and signing process will also help you increase efficiency by flagging any issues that might be slowing the sales process — and determining when to make adjustments.
If you’re using Pipedrive as your CRM, you can automate your sales process by signing and tracking the approved sales documents – from the initial to the final signed contract.
