Trust: The Cornerstone of Agreements

You likely have methods within your trust and security framework for keeping customer data safe, identifying weaknesses in your IT infrastructure, and evaluating vendors. But what about managing agreements? As critical documents that contain your business’ obligations and sensitive information, agreements are an essential part of the trust and security ecosystem. Moreover, they provide a key avenue to strengthen your relationships with customers. 

Whether you’re in the public or private sector, relationships are built on trust. Customers entrust you to protect any information they provide, and they expect you to deliver superior, end-to-end experiences. For many organizations, these expectations may seem at odds: How can an organization safeguard customer data and meet the rigors of the evolving security landscape while creating seamless digital experiences throughout the agreement process?

According to experts at Docusign and MeridianLink, accomplishing both is not only possible, it’s happening daily. Docusign Chief Privacy Officer and Deputy General Counsel Cindy Rosser and CISO Kurt Sauer recently sat down with Megan Lewis Pulliam, SVP, partner business development at MeridianLink, to discuss trust and security. Their 2024 Docusign Momentum conference roundtable covered how organizations can achieve security and ease in their customer-facing agreements, prepare for emerging threats, and leverage trust to drive sales and lower costs. 

Balancing security and customer satisfaction 

Many businesses aspire to delight customers during the agreement process, whether they’re opening an account or making changes to a long-standing contract. At MeridianLink—a software company that offers an industry-leading suite of digital solutions for banks, credit unions, and fintechs—Pulliam sees the importance of smooth customer agreement processes. Best-in-class security is essential for clients in regulated industries, but requiring them to jump through hoops can come at the cost of losing new and current customers. “You don’t want to add too much friction to the UX,” Pulliam said. “If you make it too hard for your customers to adhere to your security protocols, they will go elsewhere.” 

Take, for instance, a business that needs to authenticate a signer’s social security number during the agreement process. Doing so manually or with disjointed solutions can compromise speed, negatively impacting the customer experience. On the other hand, technology that integrates into the systems they already use can expedite the workflow. “That’s why agreement management that prioritizes speed, security, and customer experience is so important,” Sauer said. 

Solutions that digitize historically manual processes like identity verification and notarization are pathways for organizations to close the gap between security and customer experience. For businesses mandated to verify signer identity for highly sensitive agreements, solutions like ID Verification can dramatically expedite compliance by integrating verification into the signing workflow. Rather than simply sending a link via email to verify signer identity, ID Verification verifies identity using liveness checks, government-issued photo IDs, or electronic IDs—without requiring customers to leave the application. 

Notarization is another example. In the past, customers had to make in-person appointments with notaries. Docusign has digitized that process through Docusign Notary and its new partnership with OneNotary. Now, organizations can maintain consistent trust and security, and users can schedule, meet, and complete notarizations online at their convenience. 

Future-proof your business amid evolving threats

The threat landscape is constantly evolving, and as soon as an organization develops a method to prevent a threat, malicious actors quickly pivot tactics. Security leaders need to stay informed on these new tactics, regularly strengthen their tech infrastructure, and continuously monitor to keep up. “It’s important to figure out how to stay one step ahead,” Pulliam said. “Regulation and compliance are a start, but not enough. You need to implement relevant solutions.” 

Docusign Monitor is one solution organizations can implement to stay ahead. With near-real-time visibility into credential management and operational integrity, Monitor helps IT leaders detect potential threats, investigate incidents, and respond quickly. 

Docusign also works with several leading vendors to ensure its identity verification solutions address the security landscape’s continually changing threats. 

“A major focus right now is how these solutions successfully address threats from more sophisticated identity fraud methods, such as AI-generated deepfakes,” said Sauer. “The partner we work with has a dedicated fraud lab to train and test its solutions using the same professional attack patterns used by fraudsters to ensure our customers are always ahead of the game.” 

Make trust a strategic investment 

Trust, security, and privacy are often viewed as cost drivers for organizations despite being essential to business. Security leaders can underscore the connection between trust and overall performance to help their organizations see trust as a strategic investment, especially in uncertain economic conditions. 

A strong security posture instills confidence in customers, leading to greater loyalty. Today's customers expect organizations, vendors, and partners to deliver modern, cohesive security solutions. 

Research shows that 68% of consumers expect to use digital identity verification tools when performing specific online actions.

Robust and seamless digital verification solutions can ultimately be a significant competitive factor in determining whether a consumer chooses your business over another. 

Beyond building value for your brand and driving new business, trust can actually reduce costs. For instance, technology that meets or exceeds U.S., EU, and global security standards can strengthen your infrastructure and compliance, reducing costs associated with data breaches and legal issues. 

Choose the agreement management provider consumers trust

Organizations can significantly benefit from prioritizing trust, security, and broader data protection in their agreement management processes. By choosing tools and resources from a globally trusted brand like Docusign, companies can accelerate their efforts to deliver on promises of reliability, security, and convenience to customers. 

“Trust is a core value that defines how we innovate,” said Rosser. “We at Docusign recognize how important it is to take things from analog to digital in business transformation, and our work goes beyond just digitizing signatures to truly enable trust, privacy, and security as part of our digital solutions.”

In partnership with Statista, Newsweek recently ranked Docusign the most trustworthy software and telecommunications company in the U.S.

Learn how Docusign can help you digitize your agreement process for better experiences, build customer trust, and meet even the most stringent security standards.