Fax is Purple, and We Want Green...Purple is opposite of Green. Technically, it is Magenta, but Purple is a meaner color. 

Why do I say Fax is the opposite of Green?

I was just talking to a ski school about the application process. To sign my daughter up for lessons, I needed to fax them a signed application to sign my daughter up for lessons. 

Faxing, a purple process, happens millions of times a day worldwide, and it is REALLY NOT GREEN. Many of the folks requesting that their customers use this purple process don’t even realize what they are doing…

The PURPLE process looks this: 

  1. Download a form, or worse, get one in the mail.
  2. Print out form with your printer using paper, toner cartridges and electricity.
  3. Fill out form by hand and sign with my CC# and other sensitive information
  4. Fax the form to a phone number on the form.
    1. Since most homes do not have a fax machine, this ALSO means driving somewhere, consuming gas and creating emissions.
    2. You also need to pay someone else to fax it.
    3. Faxing requires a ‘cover page,’ an additional sheet of paper.
  5. The recipient then receives the FAX using more paper, toner and electricity.

What a hassle for customers! Getting through the process takes an hour!

So it should be immediately obvious why I say ‘Fax is purple’ from that above common process. It generates the need to use paper, toner, fuel, and creates exhaust emissions. Did you know this is totally unnecessary?

Let’s look at some other issues: 

  1. What if you can’t read my writing? You could make a mistake on my order, and my daughter will have to change from size 6 boots to size 8 or something like that.  Hassle.
  2. Can you really tell it was me? You don’t have my signature on file, and the only link back to me is the UPS fax #. This is not exactly a strong connection. With purple fax, fraud is easy!
  3. What if I’m responsible with my financial information? Identity theft happens. A service provider just required me to send my credit card number via fax!  Imagine that somewhere at the ski chalet, a piece of paper falls on the floor with my CC#…  Pretty easy to see why that makes me uncomfortable.  I felt uncomfortable when my CC# was visible when I gave the form to the guy at the UPS store where I had it faxed from.
  4. I think green is better than purple. We have finite resources and I try to be environmentally responsible.

What if a GREEN process existed?

Lucky for us, the DocuSign process looks like:

  1. Open the form on my PC
  2. Fill in the fields
  3. Sign electronically
  4. Instantly and securely, the ski area can access the form WITHOUT using paper, gas and creating emissions
  5. Move the data electronically from the form to the ski area system without rekeying and security issues

For customers, this takes 2 minutes and is a breeze. For the Ski Area, they get their payment, contract and data instantly. The lack of manual handling processes helps keep data secure, protecting both the customer and Ski Area. Best of all, they adopted a green process.  

Are you ready to go GREEN?

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