Case Study: Atlantic Realty

EchoSign Delivers Faster Payments and More Productive Employees

Company Overview

For 25 years, Atlantic Realty has been a premiere property management firm in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, providing a unique beach vacation experience for travelers from all over the world. Atlantic Realty manages 185 properties, providing a friendly, family atmosphere during the entire vacation process. From vacation planning in the perfect rental to recommending new vacation spots, Atlantic Realty is a dedicated partner in ensuring that coastal vacations in the Outer Banks are a memorable success.

Workflow Challenge

There’s a lot of paperwork associated with the vacation rentals. “We send out about 20 contracts per property,” says Nancy Beasley, Property Manager. “During our reservation high season, from January to June, we probably send close to 1000 documents per month.” During the balance of the year, Atlantic Realty sends out approximately 500 documents per month to home owners and guests. Like most other companies, Atlantic Realty was sending contracts via the US mail and via fax. Typically it took 5-7 business days to receive the signed documents, and once received those documents were filed manually, making it laborious to retreive information at a later date.

EchoSign Solution

VBL Technologies is the technology service partner for Atlantic Realty. Ben Jamir from VBL Technologies had implemented EchoSign for another customer and recommended EchoSign to Atlantic Realty. “EchoSign was very easy to implement”, says Nancy. “We had one training session with Ben and we were ready to go. Our agents still tell me how easy it is to use EchoSign.” Now, Atlantic Realty is sending out 99% of their documents for electronic signature and only 1% for fax signature. “Most of our customers are very comfortable with electronic signatures. However, EchoSign’s fax capability is great for those that want to sign the ‘traditional’ way.”

Results

“Bottom line — EchoSign saves us time and money.” Earlier in the year, Atlantic Realty implemented a new credit card system, and the combination of this system and EchoSign has reduced cancellations from 10-15% down to 2%. Prior to EchoSign, Atlantic Realty spent several thousand dollars annually in postage (not including paper, ink etc). “EchoSign is quick, simple, eliminates paperwork, and makes our employees more productive.” Atlantic Realty estimates that prior to using EchoSign, about 20% of an agent’s time was spent on manually processing paperwork. EchoSign has streamlined operating procedures so agents now spend more time on reservations and other revenue generating activities.

With EchoSign, we receive our payments much faster than before, and our employees are more productive making reservations rather than spending time stuffing envelopes and filing.

— Nancy Beasley, Property Manager, Atlantic Realty