- MEETPaul Gilroy
- OCCUPATIONFounder and President
- INDUSTRYEducation
- SIZE11-50 employees
Meet Paul Gilroy
Dr. Paul Gilroy is the founder and president at ProEducation Solutions. With over 40 years of student financial aid administration experience, he runs ProEducation Solutions with a vision to give back to the student community by simplifying and streamlining the financial aid process for college education in the US.
What does my organization do?
Founded in 2001, ProEducation Solutions specializes in financial aid consulting services in the education industry. The company is situated in Sarasota, Florida and serves institutions like the University of Florida, the University of Texas, and many more.
How do we do it?
The company supports US colleges and universities with technological support, staffing, and student financial aid administration. It provides both workforce and technological solutions so educational institutions and students can easily manage their financial aid online. Gilroy aims to simplify the complicated financial aid process and help thousands of students achieve their educational dreams with confidence and ease.
The Challenge
Before Zoho Sign, ProEducation Solutions struggled with inflexible document management, lengthy agreement processing, and pricey alternatives.
Conducting financial aid paperwork without a digital solution was time-consuming. "Normally, the financial aid process takes anywhere from four to six weeks, and longer with verification processes," Gilroy says. "The financial aid process often tends to be complicated, confusing, and difficult to navigate through with a paper and pen."
"Financial aid requires students and parents to complete and sign a lot of forms. This gets unnecessarily complicated when they are displaced across the nation. Also, it's tedious for families to travel cross-country to reach campuses, wait and meet people, collect forms, fill, and submit them." , Gilroy adds.
Another challenge was taking care of recurring paperwork. Gilroy explains, "Rigid, multi-year contracts were difficult to get signed and manage, especially when rapid business changes occurred unexpectedly."
ProEducation Solutions tried other vendors to digitize its paperwork—including Docusign and Adobe Acrobat Sign—but these came more challenges. "E-signature software that we tried using was expensive and disrupted our cash flow," says Gilroy.
"We first tried Docusign. Over time, we found it to be very inflexible, expensive, and our staff was frustrated with how hard it was to work with. So we switched to Adobe Sign. Unfortunately, we had an experience similar to using Docusign. Adobe was also inflexible, difficult to use, and the customer support was not impressive. What we noticed is that other companies were inflexible with pricing and made us sign long-term contracts. So irrespective of our business climate, we had to pay exorbitant prices for their services. They did not care about our business issues."
The Solution
Zoho Sign's quality, ease of use, and inexpensive credit-based features helped ProEducation Solutions overcome its paperwork hurdles.
"We hit a home run with Zoho Sign! Our experience with the platform has been exemplary. Having used Zoho CRM before, we are elated by the quality of the product, the ease of use, and most importantly, the pricing structure, which enables us to meet our business requirements in a cost-effective and efficient manner."
Speaking of other benefits, he adds, "I love being able to buy Zoho Sign credits whenever needed. It makes pricing flexible and so much easier to manage—especially for smaller businesses like ours where business conditions can change from month to month. The web portal is also intuitive and simple to use." His team also appreciates Zoho Sign's technical support team. "The onboarding customer support we received was tremendous, timely, and professional," he says, adding, "We are extremely pleased to be doing business with Zoho Sign."
Benefits and ROI
ProEducation Solutions now enjoys a hassle-free and hands-off signing experience. All paperwork is automated, quick, and secure thanks to Zoho Sign.
"Zoho Sign easily outshines the competition! With the pay-as-you-go pricing model, it offers flexibility to users without compromising on the quality. Having used competitor products, we are happy to choose Zoho Sign as our e-sign partner."
Gilroy reflects on the benefits, concluding that "having used Zoho CRM and now Zoho Sign, we are completely satisfied with the quality of the products, the readily available customer support, and the range of customizable features."
Looking Forward
Zoho Sign has been a perfect fit for the e-signature requirements at ProEducation Solutions. "In the future," Gilroy adds, "we are looking at what other Zoho products we can use at ProEducation Solutions."
Still unsure? Try our Enterprise-version for free for 14 days to experience first-hand Paul Gilroy's reasons for choosing Zoho Sign.
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