Sept. 27, 2013—CollisionMax announced Thursday the results of a three-month pilot program utilizing electronic signatures in one of the company’s 11 Philadelphia-area body shops. The electronic signature program helped CollisionMax reduce the time to secure customer approvals by nearly 98 percent (or, roughly, two days), according to the study
“We estimate that, on an annual basis, we could reduce replacement vehicle rental costs companywide by $200,000,” said Pat Beavers, CollisionMax chief operating officer. “The process of obtaining customer authorizations is an increasingly antiquated one. Electronic signatures are now both legal and effective, and there are significant efficiencies to be gained by shortening the authorization cycle time.”
CollisionMax’s Pennsauken, N.J., location ran the in-house electronic signature system, Ok2Repair, for three months (and more than 300 claims) earlier this year.
The study found that it took an average of nearly two full business days to secure written signatures compared to an average of a little more than one hour using electronic signatures.
With the electronic signature system, 97 percent of the documents were signed on the same day, 100 percent on the following day, and the longest authorization took 26 hours. Comparatively, 62 percent of the documents requiring written signatures were signed on the same day over that time period, with 80 percent being signed by the following day and the longest authorization taking nine days.
