Topic starter
25/06/2026 12:54 am
TL;DR: Email-only agreement workflows create delay, missed signatures, and compliance exposure, while SMS and multichannel notifications improve completion rates and speed in customer-facing processes, according to OneSpan and cited market research. The identity lesson is that digital agreement flows now depend on channel reach, consent handling, and controlled delivery as much as on the signature step itself.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by OneSpan: “Comment les notifications multicanal redéfinissent le retournement des accords”.
By the numbers:
- 84 % of consumers chose to receive SMS messages from businesses in 2025.
- SMS has a 98 % open rate, with 90 % read within three minutes.
- 72 % of financial firms have integrated SMS into their communication strategies.
Key questions
Q: How should organisations govern SMS notifications in eSignature workflows?
A: Organisations should govern SMS notifications as part of the identity and transaction workflow, not as a standalone messaging feature.
Q: What breaks when agreement workflows rely on email only?
A: Email-only delivery breaks when urgency depends on a reminder being seen quickly.
Q: Why do SMS notifications improve completion rates for signing flows?
A: SMS improves completion rates because it reaches users on the device they check most often and is usually read quickly.
Practitioner guidance
- Map agreement completion to channel governance Document which signing workflows depend on email only, which permit SMS, and which require both.
- Separate consent from delivery mechanics Record opt-in and opt-out status for each notification channel and make that status visible to the workflow owner.
- Build fallback paths for missed reminders Define what happens when the first reminder is not acted on, including escalation to an alternate channel and exception handling for low-urgency versus time-critical agreements.
Bottom line: Email-only signing workflows are fragile because they depend on a channel that users often miss, delay, or ignore.
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25/06/2026 9:59 am
Channel reach is now part of identity workflow governance. Agreement completion depends on whether the signer actually receives and notices the prompt, not just whether the document system is available. That makes notification delivery a control surface in human IAM workflows, especially where deadlines, regulated consent, and customer experience intersect. Practitioners should treat channel design as a governed identity journey, not a marketing detail.
A question worth separating out:
Q: When should organisations prefer multichannel notifications over email-only reminders?
A: Prefer multichannel delivery when the agreement is time-sensitive, customer-facing, or tied to revenue, claims, lending, or onboarding. If a missed reminder creates operational delay or compliance exposure, relying on a single inbox channel is too brittle. Multichannel is justified when prompt completion is part of the control objective.
👉 Read our full editorial: Multichannel eSignature notifications change agreement completion