“Before, we would print, everyone would sign in person, scan and then store documents in our cloud-based system. Now that we are using Penneo we can put it directly into the system and collect signatures digitally. It saves a lot of time that we are using Penneo.” – Jenny Tell, Rental Manager at Svenska Nyttobostäder
About Svenska Nyttobostäder
Svenska Nyttobostäder (SNB) is a property management company that owns and manages newly built residential properties in Stockholm, Sweden. The apartments are rented out to universities, healthcare organizations, and other companies and individuals coming from abroad who plan to stay for a longer period. The vision is to fill the need for housing at prices that everyone with an income can afford.
At the moment, SNB owns 5 buildings and approximately 1000 apartments. It used to be owned by a holding company but after being listed on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market in November 2020, SNB will be buying buildings on its own going forward. Through purchase agreements, the company has grown rapidly in a few years and is estimated to own and manage almost 6000 apartments in 2025.
SNB is actively embracing digitization and tries to make use of digital tools available in the market. The company already has a phone application for renters to communicate and share information and digital keys to all buildings – making sure that a physical key to their properties will never be produced or copied.
“We are trying to be as digital as possible”. – Jenny Tell, Rental Manager at Svenska Nyttobostäder
However, as the company was growing and detaching from its holding company, the need for a better and more efficient signing solution was crucial. SNB has two categories of clients: private clients that rent apartments and companies that rent buildings. The variety of agreements and contracts differs tremendously depending on the client’s situation and language too. Being able to handle and keep track of all documents and storing them safely is therefore essential.
Challenges
• Time-consuming tedious daily tasks
One of the most challenging aspects of daily work at SNB is collecting signatures for the different contracts and client agreements in good time. There are two ways SNB collects signatures, either through arranging personal client meetings where contracts would be signed or by using the postal services to mail documentation over and wait for it to be returned signed. Either way, both those options are time-consuming and it would on average take SNB between 1-2 weeks before the documentation had been sent, signed, returned, and stored in the company’s cloud-based archive.
The existing signature collection workflow was therefore based on hoping to receive the signatures back on time while expecting delays or unexpected events in the process. This, and the lack of an overview of the signature collection status, could easily create frustrations during daily work.
“Worst case, waiting for the two parties to sign. It can be a very long process just to get the signature.” – Jenney Tell, Rental Manager at Svenska Nyttobostäder
• Unsustainable customer communication back and forth
Ineffective customer communication was another big concern at SNB. Email correspondence concerning a housing deal would often be entangled with notifications and alerts about document signing – making the customer relationship and communication suffer and creating a lot of manual work for SNB. Considering that the company is expected to own and manage almost 6000 apartments by 2025, sending out individual emails to remind clients about signing the contracts would be too time-consuming and would make it difficult to keep track of progress, therefore not really a sustainable approach long-term.
Results
• Increased efficiency by streamlining signing workflows & automating manual tasks
With Penneo, collecting signatures is less time-consuming and the process is more manageable. Contracts can be signed under a minute digitally with Penneo. SNB no longer arranges personal client meetings for contracts to be signed and no longer rely on postal services to deliver documentation.
“We use emails mostly, and also from now on we just send the documents through Penneo and tell the clients in advance that they are sending them digitally and that they have to sign with a BankID. We don’t send anything by post anymore. There is no problem, it is going really well.” – Jenny Tell, Rental Manager at Svenska Nyttobostäder
Thanks to Penneo’s signature collection workflow, all signed contracts and agreements are now automatically stored in Penneo’s archive. Our platform provides SNB with a complete overview of the signature collection status, easily accessible on the dashboard. The company can at any time know which documents have been signed and which ones haven’t.
SNB is currently using their own templates for document creation which it then uploads to Penneo as a PDF and sends over for signing – and can still take advantage of the Penneo archive and store documents there in an easy, secure, and efficient way.
“Right now we make our own individual templates for an agreement and download them to a pdf but going forward we are considering using Penneo’s built-in templates.” – Jenny Tell, Rental Manager at Svenska Nyttobostäder
• Improved customer experience
Customer communication has improved and shortened significantly after implementing Penneo. The dialogue with clients is now solely about providing information and answering relevant questions, rather than sending reminders about signing documents. This allows SNB to provide its clients with more value and focus more on their needs.
Moreover, they have discovered that Penneo has turned out to be a great asset for handling renters coming from afar. Whether clients were on a vacation or in a different timezone, the alerts have a more assertive effect when they come automatically rather than as a part of existing email correspondence. And clients can easily sign any documents from anywhere they are, on any device available to them.
“Often other signers were unavailable or on vacation – it’s much better to have a digital signature and get the digital documents directly”. – Jenny Tell, Rental Manager at Svenska Nyttobostäder
By implementing Penneo, SNB has:
- Saved time on collecting signatures and automated its workflows.
- Saved costs on postal services.
- Improved customer experience by elevating the email communication and keeping reminders out of the correspondences.
- Increased efficiency and collaboration internally by using different types of document handling, such as rental agreements and yearly reports.
- Incorporated Penneo with other tools, so they don’t have to build their documents in Penneo and can use whatever program they used before and download documents to Penneo.
