As exciting and challenging as it is to be involved in the communications technology industry, it’s even more rewarding when you get to creatively combine innovations for a unique, productive solution.

That’s exactly what happened when SpiralFX was invited to partner with Voice Signature company. As its name describes, Voice Signature is a web-based process that allows business people to speak their names and legally “sign” a contract or document from remote locations, using a telephone call and computer connections instead of a pen.

With Voice Signature, an average company can reduce the cost of a transaction by as much as 75%. Travel and meeting time are minimized and the costs of paper and postage are eliminated. In addition to making it faster and easier to close deals, Voice Signature creates a safe choice for gathering and storing electronic signatures. 

The soon-to-be patented Voice Signature concept was developed by Clay Kittrell, the company founder and CEO, who realized early in the game that his idea called for a lot of good technical support.

“We had a general direction,” Clay recalls, “but we needed someone to provide a design/build solution -- something that would establish a value proposition and make the most sense from a business perspective.”

Naturally, the Voice Signature process had to be quick and easy to use, or else customers wouldn’t see the efficiency benefits it offered.

“We were appealing to small businesses, and we wanted to build an application layer of XML exchanges to use the different programming interfaces,” Clay explains. “We were looking at open-source tools so people could upload Word documents and convert them to PDFs (for completing the digital signature process and manipulating forms).”

At that point, Clay brought in Andrew Royappa of SpiralFX. They had worked together before, and Clay was impressed with Andrew’s approach to the problem from a practical standpoint.

“Andrew provided a lot of good business advice along with the technical things,” Clay says. “It was obvious that he’d run his own company before.”

After evaluating the various demands for speed, convenience, safety, and accessibility, SpiralFX developed the entire Voice Signature application. The system is a hybrid framework consisting of a Linux Server for the primary logic and a Windows 2003 server for Word/PDF conversion over .NET. The framework integrates with web services from three additional sources: Angel.com for phone/voice, Amazon.com S3 for secure data storage, and Amgraf.com/VoiceBond for signature stamping. Incoming voice signatures are digitized as wave files.

“The Angel.com integration is a voice-response system provider,” Clay explains, “but it’s much more than an automated attendant. It actually collects and provides data and records active transactions. Then it can take a file and send it to our server.”

The Amazon S3 connection is an ingenious way to enhance the safety and availability of the company’s data by enabling Voice Signature to store extra copies of all files and signatures.

“Amazon has developed large sets of servers to make sure their business runs smoothly,” Clay says, “so they have a lot of available storage space. Then they sell some of it to us by the gigabyte, and it’s pretty cheap.”

Piggybacking onto Amazon’s infrastructure lets Voice Signature provide an effective, economical way to give customers added confidence that their signatures and documents are safely archived and accessible.

Another noteworthy feature of the SpiralFX configuration is a complex Flash user-interface that simplifies navigation. Anyone who has ever dealt with business documents knows there is often more than one page of the contract that needs signing. With Voice Signature, the documents appear on a person’s computer screen.

“Then, the Flash function creates yellow place markers, indicating where signatures are required,” says Clay. “That makes it easy for people to find where to sign and acknowledge it, and then they just certify their spoken signature.”

The idea of Voice Signature is still catching on, but as business professionals discover it, they immediately recognize its advantages. Interest in the service is coming through referrals and search engines, and Clay acknowledges the skills of SpiralFX in making his website so attractive and useful.

“They’ve always gone above and beyond for me,” Clay says emphatically. “I don’t mind saying they’re the best technical provider I ever worked with.”

Clay also appreciates SpiralFX’s commitment to ongoing service and follow-through. “They’re very accessible if we ever have issues,” he says, “and in this business, there are always going to be issues.”

When reminded that some web-development partners aren’t that conscientious about pursuing long-term relationships, Clay says, “SpiralFX genuinely cares about their customers’ success. Why create a technical spaceship that won’t take you anywhere?”

To learn more about Voice Signature and their SpiralFX-created website, please visit www.VoiceSignature.com.