The short answer: send a short note from your own email, not another DocuSign reminder. Name the start date that is waiting on the signature, ask whether anything in the scope, schedule or price needs to change, and offer a ten-minute call at two specific times. A service agreement that was opened and left often has a question behind it.
What DocuSign already does for you
DocuSign has two features that matter here, and both are worth turning on.
Reminders. On an envelope, you check “Reminders Enabled”, choose how many days after sending the first reminder goes out, then how often the next ones follow. Admins can enforce those settings for every envelope or let each sender change them.
Sender notifications. Under your notification preferences, the sending notifications include “A recipient viewed your document” and “An envelope has been completed.” DocuSign says all notification options are on by default.
Where it stops:
- A reminder asks the signer to sign. It cannot ask what is holding it up, and a facility manager who has a question about the weekend schedule will not answer a system email.
- Only the sender hears about it. A DocuSign moderator puts it plainly: the person who gets notifications about recipients viewing and signing “is only the sender of the envelope”. If your salesperson sent it, you never see the viewed notice.
- Nothing texts you, the sender. DocuSign can add SMS notifications for signers, but the viewed notice reaches you as one more email in an inbox that got sixty others that day.
What to send
Reply in the email thread where you sent the proposal, so it lands next to the context. Keep it under a hundred words. Here is one for a commercial cleaning agreement, with invented names:
Hi Maria,
I saw the service agreement for the Lakeside Medical building came through on your end. Is there anything in the scope, the nightly schedule or the start date you’d like changed before you sign? Happy to adjust it.
We’re holding a crew for October 6. If it’s easier, I can walk you through it in ten minutes, Thursday at 10 or 2.
Thanks,
Rick
Why it works: it gives Maria a reason to answer that is not “yes, signing now.” The start date makes the cost of waiting concrete without a threat. Two specific times beat “let me know when works.”
If three business days pass with nothing, send one shorter line, then pick up the phone:
Hi Maria, checking whether October 6 still works for you. If the agreement needs changes, send them over and I’ll turn them around the same day.
After that, a third email of any kind is less useful than a call.
The alfred_ way
First, a rule, written once in chat on the desktop or by text:
You: Text me when DocuSign says a client viewed or completed an agreement I sent.
alfred_: Done. I’ll text you when a DocuSign email says someone viewed or completed one of your agreements.
Illustrative exchange. Names and companies in this post are invented.
Tuesday afternoon, a few minutes after DocuSign’s email reaches your inbox, the text arrives: Maria Chen viewed the Lakeside Medical service agreement. Thursday morning it still is not signed, and you are in the truck:
You: Draft a short note to Maria Chen about the Lakeside agreement she opened Tuesday. Ask if anything in the scope or start date needs changing, say we’re holding a crew for October 6, and offer a 10 minute call Friday at 10 or 2. Don’t send it yet.
alfred_: Here’s the draft to Maria Chen, “Re: Lakeside Medical service agreement”: “Hi Maria, I saw the service agreement came through on your end. Is there anything in the scope or the start date you’d like changed before you sign? We’re holding a crew for October 6. Happy to walk you through it in ten minutes, Friday at 10 or 2.” Send it?
You: Add that we can start a week later if October 6 is too soon, then send it
alfred_: Added: “If October 6 is too soon, we can start the week after.” Send it?
You: yes
alfred_: Sent.
You: Remind me Monday at 9 to call Maria if Lakeside isn’t signed
alfred_: I’ll text you Monday at 9:00 AM.
When DocuSign’s “completed” email arrives, the same rule texts you, and the chase is over. One thing alfred_ does not do is follow up on a schedule by itself: there is no automatic chase cadence. Each nudge is one you ask for, and each send waits for your yes.
Where each step happens
- Text, on the road: the viewed and completed alerts, the drafted note, the edit, the yes, and the Monday reminder.
- Desktop, in the office: writing the rule in chat, or drafting the note in chat where the compose preview lets you edit every word before it sends. The sent note sits in the proposal thread in your inbox.
- iPhone app: reading the whole proposal thread before you nudge, when a text summary is not enough.
The honest caveat
alfred_ does not chase unsigned agreements on its own. It gets the viewed notice to you as a text, writes the nudge when you ask, and reminds you when you tell it to, but the rhythm is yours. And because DocuSign only sends activity notices to the envelope’s sender, the rule has to run on the mailbox that sends your agreements.
For how drafts are written and approved, see drafts and approvals. For text alerts on other email, see text alerts for important emails, and for the texting side, the SMS assistant page.