What are Client Interviews?
In another post entitled, “How Much Does HotDocs Cost?” I gave a brief summary of each of our products and the different role each plays. As I wrote about our new SaaS product, HotDocs Document Services, I realized that one of its coolest features, Client Interviews, is so game-changing that it warranted its own post. The Client Interviews feature is a web-based way to send HotDocs interviews to other HotDocs users or people outside of your organization via email or by posting links on your website.
What is a HotDocs Interview?
A HotDocs Interview is a question-and-answer tool used to gather the information you would like to merge into your template. For example, if you were assembling a loan application form, you might use a HotDocs Interview to enter the name, credit score, loan amount, etc. for each individual applicant. These interviews can gather as much information as you need to produce a document and ensure the document is filled out correctly, saving you a lot of time. In addition, you can save answers that you have used previously and reuse them each time you make a document for a similar case (e.g., if the loan application from our previous example were approved, you could use the information you already gathered for the loan agreement in a draft for a mortgage). In a nutshell, HotDocs Interviews are the key to fast and accurate document production.
What are Client Interviews?
Client interviews are a new feature that allows Document Services users to deploy HotDocs Interviews over the web. In the past, an interview had to be filled out inside your desktop application of HotDocs. With Client Interviews, however, you can now send an interview to a fellow co-worker who has specific data only he or she can provide or you can send a link to the interview directly to a customer!
Why Would You Use Client Interviews?
Before Document Services came along, the process for producing an automated document would look something like this: You meet with the client and obtain the relevant data (e.g. name, birthday, number of children, etc.) by writing it down on paper or on a computer. Then you or another person in your organization takes the information you gathered, enters it into a HotDocs interview, and assembles the document.
On the other hand, with the Client Interviews feature of Document Services, you can save even more time by cutting out the second step of having someone transfer the data from your notepad or computer to HotDocs. Now, you can actually email your client a link to the interview. The client, who is obviously an expert on his personal information, enters some or all of the data you need directly into a HotDocs Interview and sends it back to you, making the final document production a breeze. You can also put links to the interviews right on your website instead of emailing them the link. This new feature is already allowing a lot of organizations to make their HotDocs document creation process even faster.
To sum it all up, Client Interviews allow you to worry less about the document production process and focus more on your business. It cuts out the troublesome and sometimes error-prone step of inputting client information into an interview.
I hope this helps you understand HotDocs Interviews and Client Interviews a little better. Please feel free to leave comments below: