Meet Sally Taylor: A Trust Trailblazer in Online Closings
Sally Taylor, Digital eClosing Manager at First American with 23 years in title and escrow, pioneered the company's remote online notarization (RON) program starting in 2018, leading a national team of 40-50 full-time RON specialists who have completed over 50,000 signings, significantly enhancing customer convenience and transforming First American's business model by meeting growing demand for flexible, mobile notarization services especially accelerated by COVID-19.
Sally Taylor is the Digital eClosing Manager (Direct Division) at First American, based in Kansas City, and has been in the title and escrow business for 23 years. Over the last 8 years, she has focused on the business side, working on strategy and implementation of various projects, including remote online notarization (RON). In 2020, she created the RON team at First American.
Below is a Q&A with Sally about her experience using Proof for online notarization at First American.
Tell me how you got started with online notarization and bringing it to First American.
I started working on RON in 2018, learning how RON works and deciding how to implement it at First American. In the beginning, it was critically important to collaborate with key stakeholders, like the underwriting, training, advisory, and compliance departments, to make sure we had everything in place to hit the ground running. At first, RON was going to be a tool that our escrow staff would use, but then COVID hit and there became a much higher demand for RON. We quickly transitioned, using volunteers at first, but then created a national centralized team once we realized that RON wasn't going to go away after COVID. The demand for RON has just continued to grow, and we now have a team of about 40-50 people that work on RON full time. Our team has completed over 50,000 RON signings.
What do you see as the major advantages to using RON?
Customer convenience. I started noticing back in 2018, even before COVID, that the demand for mobile notaries was increasing. Customers were asking to sign at a place or time that was more convenient for them. RON is that next step that customers are wanting and will soon be demanding.
How did adopting RON at First American change your business/business model?
We have an experienced team that has been doing RON full time for 4 years now. We have surveyed our escrow staff, and RON receives the top survey rating - they love this service. Escrow receives their documents back quickly after the signing, because they don't have to wait for a notary to drop them off or FedEx them back. And we are able to offer a convenient service that customers want.
What are the advantages of using Proof as a RON partner?
We have a really good relationship with Proof. We like to provide feedback and ideas for enhancements and Proof has been so good at taking those ideas and bringing them to life.
How does your in-house notary team like using Proof? What are the main selling points for Proof within First American?
Proof works with a tablet or a mobile phone which is really convenient for customers. Our team also likes using Proof because it is really user-friendly. We especially like the overflow feature - if a First American notary isn't available for a signing, a notary from Notarize Network (powered by Proof) will pick it up.