Company’s Top Objectives Associated Bank is systematically replacing a portion of its paper-based processes with DocuSign Digital Transaction Management (DTM), improving efficiency for employees and customers alike. By removing many paper-based functions from the online account opening process, Associated Bank has reduced the rate of customer abandonments. Better close rates, lower costs, and increased efficiency are enabling the bank to quickly recover its investment in DocuSign while providing a better client experience for competitive advantage.

ChallengeAssociated Bank provides retail and commercial banking, commercial real estate lending, private client, and specialized financial services from its headquarters in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The bank has $27 billion in assets, 239 branches, and approximately 4,300 employees. Associated utilizes many documents that require wet ink signatures from customers. Until recently all of the bank’s processes were manual and paper-based, which led to substantial waiting time for all involved as well as unnecessary costs, errors, and general inefficiency.

Better Close Rates, Lower Costs, and Increased Efficiency Are All Achieved with DocuSign’s Digital Transaction Management (DTM)

CASE STUDY, Associated Bank

Associated Bank Delights Customers with

DocuSign, Achieves Bottom Line Results

Top Benefits Achieved

Unlocked data, sped up processes, and reduced abandonment rate

Increased efficiency and improved customer satisfaction

Gained sustainable competitive advantage

“These days, for example, we get a lot of customers using the Internet to open new accounts from home,” explained Candice Ollila, a business analyst for Associated Bank. “The process we provided them was speedy up to the point where they had to print out their signature cards, sign them, and deliver them in person or put them in the mail to us. Well, you can bet that anyone who chooses the online route for opening an account wants to see automation throughout the process – instead of having to print, mail, and wait. Sure enough we had a lot of abandonment from people who started the process but didn’t follow through.”

The ResolutionIn order to provide better customer service and gain the competitive advantage that comes with it, Associated Bank looked into eSignature, inviting several vendors to present and demonstrate their solutions. “DocuSign’s Digital Transaction Management platform really stood out,” reported Ollila. “We were impressed by DocuSign’s professionalism, its reputation for excellence as The Global Standard, and the ease of use and functionality of the product.” The bank began the deployment by integrating its account opening software as a front end to DocuSign and its enterprise document management system as a back end. Both integrations went smoothly and without issues. Then, one by one, Associated developed new and improved processes. The first was the retail online process for opening joint ownership accounts. The new DocuSign process equips secondary signers to sign their signature cards and W-9 forms electronically, saving the aggravation of printing, signing, and mailing the documents while automating their incorporation into the content management system. “DocuSign significantly improves the process when a primary and a joint apply for a deposit account online – especially when they aren’t in the same location,” said Justin Chapman, digital solutions manager for Associated Bank. “As a result we have gained major efficiencies in the time it takes to open a joint account online and have made the application process paperless.” Next, the bank used DocuSign DTM to streamline signature exchange with its correspondent banks during their annual certification process. DocuSign eliminated unnecessary steps; automated tracking, auditing, and reporting; and generally made the process more efficient, accurate, and repeatable. The bank also streamlined its process for executing third party contracts, providing a single point of facilitation, by implementing DocuSign.

We adopted DocuSign to improve our efficiency and increase customer satisfaction, and I’m pleased to say we’ve been very successful on both counts.“

Candice Ollila,Business Analyst

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DocuSign, Inc. (DocuSign®), The Global Standard for Digital Transaction Management® helps organizations achieve their digital transformations for dramatic ROI, increased security and compliance, and better experiences for customers, partners, suppliers and employees. DocuSign automates manual, paper-based processes with the only open, independent, standards-based DTM platform for managing all aspects of documented business transactions. DocuSign empowers anyone to transact anything, anytime, anywhere, on any device securely.

The Key BenefitsMost recently the bank used DocuSign DTM to automate its internal process for signing off on the retirement of software that the bank no longer needs. DocuSign ensures that all the people involved in the process have fulfilled their obligations. Now that this project has entered production, Associated Bank is turning its attention to a succession of upcoming projects for using DocuSign in important new ways. “There is no question that with DocuSign we have saved costs, reduced our abandonment rate, sped up our processes, increased customer satisfaction, and improved tracking and measurement,” said Ollila in conclusion. “Unfortunately we can’t quantify any of these benefits because measuring and tabulating metrics was just too hard in the past. But now, with DocuSign, it’s automatic. DocuSign has unlocked our data. That’s a big benefit right there.”