DocuSign exec: ‘Digitally native’ is about improving the customer experience

Glenn Shimkus spent most of his career in the mid-1990s helping Fortune 500 companies go paperless. Today, as vice president of DocuSign, he is working on bringing that change to real estate.

Shimkus was a presenter at the Real Estate Connect conference in New York City last January. He spoke about his predictions for the industry and how going paperless or “digitally native” will change the overall customer experience in real estate transactions.

“There are so many components out there and when you talk about paperless it’s not just one thing,” said Shimkus. “It’s not just the act of signing. It’s not just how you store information. It’s about how you do that and how you bring together those pieces.”

While there are many vendors available to help with paperless transactions, Shimkus says no one company can do it all. “What we are going to be seeing in the industry is a lot of working together because no one company is going to offer a solution that solves the problem,” he said. “The goal is how do we start consolidating those things and making them work together? If you have a document and you need to store it, share it, or sign it, you shouldn’t have five different solutions for that.”

Shimkus added, “There are a lot of vendors out there to help you with components like Dropbox if you want to store a document or Evernote for taking notes. We want to bring that together so that when we are talking about paperless we are going to have a solution. It has happened over the last decade or two in other industries. It’s coming and it’s coming very quickly in real estate.”

Shimkus noted several benefits of going paperless:

• Speed: Being able to get things turned around is key, says Shimkus. “As the market recovers and we start to get multiple offers in places again, speed is important,” he said.
• Convenience: “It’s not just convenience for us as agents; it’s about convenience for our clients,” he said. “Does the client really want you to come to their house at 9:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night to sign one document?”
• Efficiency: “The more we can bring these pieces together the more effective this becomes,” said Shimkus.
• Experience: It’s really about the experience, according to Shimkus. “Look at what Disney is doing. Instead of having a ticket or park pass, Disney gives you a bracelet to wear. Why are they doing that? It’s about the experience.”

Shimkus said, “This isn’t the year every single person in the industry will go paperless and digitally native. Change is hard and you’re going to have all these solutions. Many of these solutions don’t work well together today but it’s going to start getting easier.”

“Digitally native is about improving the customer experience. It’s not replacing what you do as an agent; it’s about enhancing what you do so that the client has a magnificent experience,” he concluded.