DocuWare > Case Studies > Sigma Financial: Providing Personalized, yet Efficient Customer Service

Sigma Financial: Providing Personalized, yet Efficient Customer Service

Company Size

200-1,000

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

DocuWare System License
DocuWare ACTIVE IMPORT
DocuWare CDMAKER

Tech Stack

Windows 2000 network
TCP/IP

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Customer Satisfaction
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage

Applicable Industries

Finance & Insurance

Applicable Functions

Business Operation
Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Fraud Detection
Regulatory Compliance Monitoring
Remote Asset Management

Services

Software Design & Engineering Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Sigma Financial, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a premier full-service financial broker dealer. Established in 1983, Sigma’s corporate office employs 90 people and through a joint venture with Midland National Life Insurance they boast a network of over 1400 independent representatives located in 48 states. Sigma sells a broad assortment of financial products ranging from traditional brokerage accounts to financial planning services to disability insurance. Sigma positions itself as a 'family' or personalized broker dealer. In a world of automated phone attendants, Sigma still has live receptionists answering the phones and directing calls in a friendly manner. The company has won the Broker Dealer of the Year Award from the Investment Advisor Fax Poll in seven of the last ten years. Sigma’s big differentiator when it comes to attracting high-quality representatives, is the technology support it provides its reps.

The Challenge

Sigma Financial, a premier full-service financial broker dealer, was facing several challenges related to document management. Every morning, the mailroom staff had to open 100-150 overnight envelopes containing 220-250 sales forms that were 8-10 pages in length. The 'original' was sent to the Compliance department for approval, and once approved, the form went to the Sales Processing department who sent the 'original', via overnight mail, to the appropriate fund company. The 'copy' was sent to the Commissions department, where the information was manually input into Sigma’s commissions program, giving the rep credit for the sale. The 'copy' was then filed by rep’s name in Sigma’s dedicated file room. Most of the records stored there needed to be kept on file for seven years and a few document types needed to be stored indefinitely. Processing a sales form was at least a two-day process. Average document retrieval time was anywhere from 10-15 minutes per form and usually 20-30 forms were accessed daily. Retrieving, refiling and just keeping track of pulled files was made even more difficult because all of Sigma’s corporate employees had access to the file room. Furthermore, Sigma was running out of room and would need to add additional filing space and personnel.

The Solution

Sigma’s electronic document management solution consists of a DocuWare System License, as well as the DocuWare ACTIVE IMPORT and CDMAKER modules. A Canon 4050 scanner and CD Rom Jukebox were also purchased for the solution. Five FULL FUNCTION licenses and five READ/ONLY licenses provide all of Sigma’s corporate employees with access to DocuWare. Four to six employees use DocuWare on a daily basis, the rest hop in and out of the program to collect the information they need. Once DocuWare was implemented, a workflow process to manage the sales forms was set up and slowly introduced to the reps as the Sales Fax Admissions Program. Sigma developed a fax coversheet which compiled all the important information from the 8-10 page sales forms onto one page. This allowed Sigma to 'standardize' the constantly changing sales forms of hundreds of different funds and quickly and easily view the information that was used as the index fields in the DocuWare file cabinet. When a sales form is faxed to corporate headquarters, DocuWare’s ACTIVE IMPORT module reads the information from the coversheet, and automatically indexes the document and places it in a DocuWare basket for the Compliance department to review.

Operational Impact

On an individual level, DocuWare has saved countless man-hours by reducing document retrieval time from 15 minutes to seconds. Anyone in the corporate office can quickly and easily access a file from their desktop.
Because nothing is ever taken out of a file, information never turns up missing and three week waits for a copy of a missing document are a thing of the past.
Quick access to information has improved Sigma’s customer service, because issues and questions can be addressed immediately.
Sigma’s reps have also enjoyed the benefits of DocuWare. Submitting a sales form has never been easier or faster.
By using DocuWare, Sigma Financial and its reps have saved two days of processing time.

Quantitative Benefit