How Trustmark National Bank Brings Service Excellence to the Digital Banking Experience

There are thousands of commercial banks and financial institutions in the United States, so standing out from the competition can be difficult. Any of those banks can help customers with the impersonal mechanics of managing money. But banks that understand their business is really about people have an advantage in attracting and retaining customers. That’s been Trustmark National Bank’s approach to banking. 

Trustmark is known for associates who go above and beyond to serve customers. Its people-centric approach involves one-on-one interactions with customers in more than 180 locations in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. Customers have appreciated that intimate level of service for more than 130 years. But recently, they requested more modern, digital banking experiences. So Trustmark leaders turned to DocuSign CLM to build exceptional remote services that meet the quality customers get in person.

Trustmark had been using DocuSign eSignature to facilitate quick, easy signing for a few years, but it wasn’t taking advantage of DocuSign’s capability to simplify agreement workflows. For instance, the treasury services unit that helps corporate clients invest, manage and move money still relied on paper-based, hand-to-hand processes. When a company wanted to set up direct deposit or another service, somebody would have to walk into or call the local branch and talk to a relationship manager. The relationship manager would identify the right services to offer and then mail, fax or courier a stack of forms and documents back and forth with the customer.

Once the customer signed the papers, the physical copies went to each service team to approve, start the services and manage the documents. From start to finish, the process to implement a new service took more than a week.

In late 2019, Trustmark began implementing DocuSign CLM in treasury services. The impact was immediate: Close to 97% of recipients who were sent agreements through DocuSign CLM are completing the envelope, and more than half are completed the same day.

Here’s how Trustmark redesigned its entire agreement management workflow and facilitated remote services that feel personal. 

1. Go all in.

Trustmark’s leadership could easily have just added eSignature to the treasury services forms to facilitate remote signing for new services. But to really make an impact, they needed to address the broader agreement process. So, with the help of expert consultants from Spaulding Ridge, Trustmark deployed DocuSign CLM to streamline and automate many parts of the agreement process. 

2. Create a clear road map.

Trustmark and Spaulding Ridge mapped out the process and defined what was needed to create a great digital experience, leverage efficiencies, and build automation. They made a plan that consolidated more than 20 different systems into one system that handles everything from agreement creation to final implementation and beyond. 

3. Build workflows that operate in harmony and complete tasks concurrently.

The treasury services workflow still starts with the relationship manager, who gathers the appropriate data and enters it for document generation—which takes just a couple of minutes. DocuSign CLM builds the documents and sends them electronically to the customer for signature. Once the agreement is signed, CLM creates post-signature tasks based on which products were selected.

As a signed contract is routed through the workflow, bank reps can break off the different products. So, if that customer has contracted for more than one product, the rep can create simultaneous workflow streams within that application. That allows the bank to begin work on one product while another product is awaiting approval.

Now, it takes just three to five days to get a service implemented. 

4. Simplify the process for customers and staff.

CLM only exposes the portions of the document relevant to the customer, which makes it an easier and faster experience for the signer. CLM also provides sales and support reps with visibility into agreements to identify how to improve the process.

By keeping the focus for its digital transformation on what is best for customers, Trustmark stayed true to its traditional, personal customer service approach while building a modern, remote-capable experience for implementing new services.

Banks have historically been built on relationships, so there has been an aversion to doing things remotely. But we felt we could deliver a better experience for our customers—many of whom were asking for a more digital experience—and for our employees if we deployed remote services.
Josh Laird
Vice President of Retail Administration
Trustmark

Read more about Trustmark’s DocuSign journey