Whether selling socks or self-driving cars, if you're still using paper forms, you're not doing it right. Here are 6 reasons why you should go digital:
1. Environmental impact
It's 2018, and one of the main priorities of many businesses today is moving toward a more sustainable and eco-friendly model. 35% of printed office paper ends up in the trash by the end of the day. That level of waste is bad for business, and using online forms cuts down on it.
2. Give your copy machine a rest
An average document is copied ten times. Ten times! That waste of time, resources, and money is a crime in today's business world. Online forms can be copied and shared more efficiently and they create zero paper waste. You can easily duplicate your forms and share them with any number of people in your organization, all without having to fill a paper tray. Even better is when you can share your forms using a barcode/QR code, so respondents can just scan it on their mobile device, access the form, fill it out, and submit it. No more copying the same forms over and over again.
3. Paper spells "old fashioned"
While there's definitely a tactile appeal to paper—paperbacks over ebooks—when it comes to business, digital trumps paper any day. With 38% of consumers believing that companies that use paper forms and documents are inefficient, there's no point sticking to paper forms when there's a better, well-established way. Online form-filling is just easier, especially when you build them with conditional logic that tailors fields to the person filling it out.
4. Can't lose online forms
No matter how much you may prefer paper over digital, there's one area where paper just can't compete—reliability. While you can always lose paper forms to natural disasters or human carelessness, your digital forms and data are all safe and sound in the cloud. As an added bonus, you're free from worrying about the logistics of where to store your growing mountain of paper forms. You're welcome!
5. Digital is future proofing
In this day and age, 86% of people in the 18-25 demographic prefer digital over paper forms—and that percentage will only go up with time. You know who else likes online forms? 67% of people over 65 prefer them, too. If everyone already prefers the convenience of online forms, there's little reason to resist the switch.
6. Your bottom line
If you're still not sold on the idea of online forms, the idea of saving close to $120,000,000—the amount spent annually by U.S companies on printed forms—should do the trick. Why are companies spending so much on paper when it's more expensive, less efficient, and less sustainable? For this Earth Day, why not make the switch to online forms?
Are you still using paper forms? Go on and make the switch to online forms! Tweet us at @zohoforms
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