Background on AEGIS Land Title Group

AEGIS Land Title Group is a title insurance and settlement services provider with eleven offices across Washington state. The founder and owner of AEGIS, Paul Hoffman, has continuously prioritized being a tech-forward, innovative business to deliver a superior customer experience. AEGIS uses Qualia to run its extensive and growing title operation and pride themselves on providing their clients with exceptional experiences. “Being cloud-based with Qualia allowed us to be incredibly nimble and handle the volume that came to us during the pandemic,” said Hoffman.

With 62% of homebuyers expecting digital closings, adopting Remote Online Notarizations (RON) was a no-brainer for AEGIS. When the opportunity arose to use Qualia RON, AEGIS was first in line to test it out. Qualia RON is the industry’s first and only remote online notarization solution built directly into a title & escrow system of record.

By using Qualia RON, AEGIS has cut the time to run RON sessions from 1 hour down to 15 minutes. Not only did Qualia RON save AEGIS and their clients time, but the differentiated user interface and intuitive workflows provided an excellent client experience so their clients could complete their closings no matter where they were.

AEGIS’s journey to Qualia RON was not a straightforward path, however. The team had early challenges with attempts trying other RON solutions that nearly had them abandon their efforts.

Challenge 1: Manual, time-consuming processes

RON has been around since the early 2000s, and as soon as it was legal in Washington in 2020, AEGIS took advantage of RON through third-party remote notaries and other RON point solutions. While it was nice to advertise RON capabilities to clients, the process was very manual, which wiped out many of the benefits of RON eClosings.

Challenge 2: Lack of integration with primary workflows

Even though AEGIS was running RON sessions, their RON point solutions were not integrated into their title production software. “It was no different than sending out documents to a notary, it just happened that we were doing it electronically,” said owner Paul Hoffman. The lack of integration into their title production software and having to jump between a variety of tools to complete a RON eClosing made RON more of a challenge. Lisa Hamilton, Chief Escrow Administrator, explained that “Over time, it became more and more important for us to conduct RON sessions internally, without external third-party software.”

Solution: Qualia RON

EGIS was an early adopter of Qualia RON when it became available in Washington and the team has seen immediate benefits. “We have received a ton of amazing feedback from customers and our RON team on how easy it is to use,” said Hamilton. Qualia RON is integrated directly into Qualia Connect, a secure closing portal. “It's a very secure way of signing, and more and more people are doing it. It's the future.” Qualia RON is easy to use, allowing AEGIS to save time at the closing table and provide options and flexibility to their clients.

Streamline the client experience with one system

Since Qualia RON is directly integrated into Qualia, internal teams can move files faster and get closings done quickly. “Instead of the closing team having to package up their documents and email them out to someone else to mark up signature lines and set up RON through another software, everything goes through Qualia,” said Hamilton.

On the client side, having one portal to log into for all their title needs simplifies and streamlines the client experience. “The signing goes out through Qualia RON and the customers log into Qualia Connect, the same platform they have already used, to complete their RON session,” Hamilton continued.

Save time before, during, and even after closing

Qualia RON saves time for both internal teams and clients. “With Qualia RON, my work experience has improved greatly. We're talking about dramatically decreasing closing appointment times, going from two hours to 15-minute sessions,” said Calvin Noel, an in-house notary at AEGIS. Qualia RON’s streamlined UI is easy to use and makes it simple to guide clients through signing documents.

Once clients log in to their Qualia RON session, the notary guides them through the process every step of the way. “Everybody is on the exact same screen, at the exact same time, seeing the exact same documents,” said Noel. “On my end, I'm able to explain to the clients what they are seeing and where they need to sign,” he continued. After the signing, clients can log in to Qualia Connect at any time to review their signed documents.

Post-closing is where the benefits of Qualia RON come together even further. Error-free documents with accurate signatures eliminate the need for corrections and are stored directly in Qualia. Plus, the documents are immediately ready for the next steps without a processor needing to wait for documents to be returned by mail or delivered by hand in person.

When clients complete their Qualia RON signing, the documents flow right back in your file—there's no delay, no waiting for that external notary to get you the documents back. There's also no delay in uploading the documents from another software program or from needing to upload an email back into your file.

Lisa Hamilton, Chief Escrow Administrator at AEGIS

Offer clients flexibility and options for how they close

In a competitive market, an exceptional client experience helps title & escrow businesses stand out from the crowd. AEGIS prides itself on the client experience. Providing flexibility and choices to clients is paramount to the company’s customer-centric reputation. With Qualia RON, clients can sign without coming into the office. “It's convenient for our customers. One of our notaries has done signings for clients while they were in Iran, Afghanistan, and even Egypt,” said Hamilton.

Qualia RON is available on both desktop and mobile, so closings can happen whenever and wherever they need to.

The fact that people can sign onto Qualia RON with their cell phones and close their entire transaction from a cell phone is leaps and bounds from where we were when I started in the industry back in 2006. Qualia RON is helping to keep us right at the forefront as we look to the future.

Lisa Hamilton, Chief Escrow Administrator at AEGIS