Jun 15, 2016

For St1, e-signing is part of first-class customer service

St1 is a modern energy company with an environmental focus, short decision-making paths and a desire to find new, efficient solutions that permeate the entire company. Cissi Janssen is Customer Service Manager at St1 Sweden. She was the driving force behind the introduction of e-signing for more efficient administration and, above all, to make it easier for customers to apply for the various fuel cards administered by St1 Sweden.

• "We want to be different," says Cissi Janssen when we meet. At St1, we want to challenge old truths and do things in new ways, both to improve our own business and to make things easier for our customers. Janssen says that high quality customer service is a matter of course for St1 and that it is increasingly important in the competitive environment to be able to offer fast and efficient solutions to meet customers' needs and provide them with an effective service.

This approach prompted St1 to look for a way to streamline its customers' card applications. The choice fell on Egreement's e-signature solution, which it has chosen to integrate fully into its own business system. With Egreement's automated service with BankID, they have managed to halve the processing time for an application, while increasing the security of the process and allowing customers to start using their cards much faster.

• Justifying a business case for a solution like this is not difficult, says Cissi Janssen. We were able to recoup the investment quickly as both general administration and handling errors are reduced, while customers can start shopping faster. And the implementation itself went very quickly, which is also an advantage. We received a presentation of Egreement in the spring of 2015 and immediately understood that this was what we were looking for. It only took around three weeks from contracting with Egreement until we introduced the service for the first card - St1 Private - so customers can apply on our website and e-sign directly.

The next step was to introduce the same system for the euroShell card for corporate customers. This automatically verifies that it is the company signatory who e-signs, increasing security for all parties. The entire application and approval process is now automated. Only if the system raises an alarm that something is wrong with an application is a manual check made by the credit department.

Today, over 60% of St1's applications, private and business, go through the website, but it has also recently introduced an e-signature solution via tablet. This solution is used for events at St1 stations. It is hoped that St1's corporate sales staff will also be able to use the solution when visiting corporate customers.

• We are very pleased that we chose to work with Egreement. I like that they are always open to new ideas and want to come up with new, smart solutions - it fits with St1's profile, says Janssen. When we have an idea, Egreement says "We'll check and get back to you!" Never "no." They are nice and helpful, put themselves forward and help St1 to develop further. They are simply easy to deal with!

• I see nothing but benefits from e-signing, says Cissi Janssen. It's actually easier to get new customers when you let them complete their application directly when they have the time. Once we had made the service available to St1 Private on the website, customers started e-signing spontaneously, without us having promoted the service. In short, it's no hassle and we're delighted!

We thank Cissi Janssen, Customer Service Manager at St1, Sweden, for a pleasant interview.

Note: The St1 Group owns the unmanned St1 stations and the manned Shell stations. The Shell brand is used under trademark license.