Best Practices Case Study: Time Warner Cable
How Time Warner Cable Reduces
“Sold-to-Revenue Cycle”
Time Warner Cable is the second-largest cable operator in the US, with technologically advanced, well-clustered systems located in five geographic areas: New York state (including New York City), the Carolinas, Ohio, southern California (including Los Angeles) and Texas.
Time Warner Cable Business Class offers a suite of phone, Internet, ethernet and cable television services to businesses of all sizes. Time Warner Cable Media Sales, the advertising arm of Time Warner Cable, offers national, regional and local companies innovative advertising solutions that are targeted and affordable.
Workflow Challenge
The Business Operations Group began to research electronic signature solutions as a way to get commercial customer contracts signed faster. At the time, the main ways to get contracts signed were attaching a contract and emailing it to a customer, or printing a contract and faxing it to a customer. (There were multiple methods used to deliver contracts to customers.)
The telecommunications business is very competitive and customers often require services on short notice. In addition, sometimes customers lost or changed agreements so Time Warner Cable Business Class was interested in reducing the cycle time to send and receive an executed contract. So in addition to closing customers faster, the Business Operations Group was looking for a way to standardize the contract process across divisions, and reduce or eliminate sales paperwork.
The Solution
Time Warner Cable Business Class is implementing Salesforce.com across their regions and originally started working with EchoSign for Salesforce in early 2008. “The integration with Salesforce and Conga Merge was key for us,” says Dale Fox, VP, Commercial Operations. “The flexibility to attach a document to an opportunity (or any object) in Salesforce is an important factor in working with EchoSign.” The Carolinas region was the first region to start using EchoSign. Since the original adoption by the Carolinas region, Time Warner Cable Business Class is rolling out EchoSign to all regions. “We hope to have our Salesforce and EchoSign rollout complete this fall,” says Howard Stall, Director, TSG Commercial Applications.
Results
In the first half of 2009, the Carolinas region sent out just over 1,000 agreements per month with an average time-to-sign of 76 minutes. “Anecdotally, we have seen agreements signed by the customer in real time,” says Howard. The revenue benefit is that the “sold-to-revenue cycle” is much shorter, with billing and service provisioning happening much faster. However, the consistent process across divisions is just as important to Time Warner Cable. “The ability to standardize across our divisions, as well as with our customers, is also important,” reveals Dale. “Now we can quickly implement consistent best practices, and the online central repository of contracts ensures easier and faster quality assurance and post-sales review. In addition to contracts, we are required to obtain multiple documents per transaction which can vary based upon the type of sale we make, and we do this through Salesforce, Conga Merge and Echosign. Most importantly, we interact with customers consistently.”
EchoSign is the fastest, easiest way to get contracts signed, tracked and filed. Unlike virtual fax or e-signature software, EchoSign offers an end-to-end solution by automating the entire contracting process from the request for signature to the distribution and filing of the executed agreement. EchoSign instantly shows you what’s out for signature, what’s been signed, when and by whom. All documents are converted to a PDF and automatically routed to all parties. In addition, archival copies of all your signed contracts are automatically stored in your EchoSign account with no scanning, inputting or effort required. For additional information, please visit
www.echosign.com or call 877-324-6744
EchoSign, Inc.
635 High Street
Palo Alto CA 94301
PH: 877-324-6744
Contact: sales@echosign.com
Web: www.echosign.com