Capital Space redefines client experiences with Docusign

Founded in 1997, Capital Space is a leading provider of high quality workspace in the Southeast of England. With over 700 customers across nine business centres, it offers a mixture of traditional office spaces, workshops, and studios to suit the changing needs of growing businesses. Regardless of rental space size, customers receive a simple, monthly licence, making budgeting easier, cost-effective, and straightforward.

The deployment of Docusign solutions to Capital Space centre management teams and head office staff supports its vision to provide the best, flexible workspace solutions for growing businesses as well as strive towards more sustainable practices. It has aided in vastly reducing paper usage across the business, while simultaneously speeding up licence turnaround times, and enabling licences to be executed regardless of location. 

Docusign Identify replaces the need for onsite verification

For almost 20 years, Capital Space operated very much in line with expected real estate agency practice, issuing individual paper-based licence agreements to its customers. Each licence agreement would also need to be supported by a Direct Debit mandate, both of which generated a lot of paper documentation for the company.

Before implementing Docusign eSignature, Capital Space relied on printing and posting licence agreements to clients to sign. Once documents were posted, the business no longer had control, or visibility, of the signing process, and was reliant upon the prospective client to sign and return them in a timely fashion. Capital Space found this an increasingly inefficient, costly, and time-consuming way to operate.

Further compounding inefficiencies, Capital Space also required proof of identity from the director of the organisation looking to rent a unit. This necessitated the client to physically present themselves in the Capital Space office with original identification documents for verification. This procedure only took a matter of moments to complete, but for clients was not only time consuming, but also inconvenient. This was due to many not residing in the same area as the centre they were looking to operate their business from.

To overcome these barriers, Capital Space has deployed Docusign eSignature to quickly process licence agreements and ensure that the correct documents are sent to the right client. Additionally, Docusign Identify has been introduced to quickly verify client authenticity regardless of their location, seamlessly enhancing the customer experience and improving business turnaround times.

Docusign eSignature accelerated Capital Space move from paper to digital

Matt Roberts, Centre Manager, at Milton Keynes Business Centre, has been responsible for overseeing the digitising of business processes across the company. Acting as the Docusign Administrator for the business, his priority has been to streamline documentation processing through the creation of smarter workflow policies.

He and his team initially evaluated Docusign eSignature at the end of 2019, before rolling it out across the business in February 2020 – just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once introduced, and training given to employees, processes very quickly changed the way the business operated, replacing all client-facing manual and paper-based agreement processes.

The company immediately saw the benefits of the new system, especially around time efficiency. Licence handling, which previously would take several days to complete, can now be handled in a matter of hours. Furthermore, by having Docusign eSignature in place at the start of the pandemic, Capital Space was able to continue running an efficient business, remotely servicing the needs of its clients.

Capital Space has a complex arrangement of workflows, including multiple documentation scenarios. The implementation of Docusign eSignature has enabled the business to create unique and varied templates that ensure the right licence agreements are generated, and readily prepopulated with client information.

“Docusign has been instrumental in providing us with the tools to meet our objectives,” said Matt, “which were moving from a manual paper-based way of doing business to a more efficient electronic approach through the creation of accurate workflows.” Since implementing eSignature in February 2021, Capital Space has sent over 1200 documents for signing, which is a saving of an estimated 15,000 sheets of paper.

Moreover, with greater visibility and tracking of digital assets, Capital Space is now better able to manage the handling, signing, and storage of licence agreements and Direct Debit mandates.

Capital Space will continue to evolve its eSignature instance

Using Docusign to digitise the workflow process has seen a positive impact from both Capital Space customers and centre management teams. Not only are licence agreement turnaround times dramatically improved, but the flexibility the digital process offered to clients is very much appreciated, as they can review, authenticate, and sign licences, regardless of location. Licence agreements used to take over a week to get signed, now over 50% are completed within 48 hours.

What’s more, Capital Space is constantly looking at new ways to enhance the customer experience. Currently, it is considering how to implement the bulk sending of documents to clients across all its sites. The process is complex and requires a unique way of working, but Matt and his team are confident that Docusign solutions are up to the challenge.