CPQ software reduces sales teams’ time on non-selling activities such as preparing quotes. It also helps to positively reinforce initial client relationships by eliminating the risk of inaccurate or delayed quotes.
No sales organization wants to present a business proposal that contains mistakes or appears amateurish. To make CPQ software work for you, it must be seamlessly integrated into your CRM system.
Automated Quote Creation
Often, the first impression that your company makes with your customer is in its quote. Creating a professional-looking, customized business proposal with accurate pricing and configurations is crucial for building a solid customer relationship. CPQ software streamlines this process by automating and simplifying it to save time and money.
With a guided selling interface and preprogrammed rules, CPQ allows your sales team to build quotes in minutes instead of days. It also eliminates the need to manually update SQL databases or prices in multiple places, reducing operational costs and the risk of human error.
The best CPQ systems offer extensive customization and integrations with other key sales and marketing systems. However, this customization should be carefully considered to ensure the system is easy to use and aligns with your sales processes without hindering performance. Consider what your sales operations and management want to accomplish and what challenges they currently face, such as advanced configurations, inconsistent discounting, and non-compliant contracts. Identifying these critical drivers will help your CPQ team determine what features are most important to implement for your organization.
Real-Time Pricing Analysis
Sending a quote to a customer with pricing errors is not only a major faux pas; it can cost your business revenue. Customers are generally willing to overlook mistakes other businesses make, but they won’t tolerate pricing errors from your company. One of the benefits of CPQ software is that it eliminates human error and delivers accurate, dependable sales quotes to help your organization generate more revenue.
Achieving a successful CPQ implementation requires buy-in from regular employees and senior management. It’s essential to listen to their insights and concerns and be transparent about job role changes that are a part of the implementation process. Setting clear timelines and achievable milestones can also help cultivate a supportive environment.
Prioritize a CPQ system with adjustable capabilities to fit the varying needs of your organization’s departments.
Streamlined Sales Processes
CPQ implementation requires buy-in from both regular employees and senior management. Implementation teams should listen to concerns, answer questions, and provide clear timelines and achievable milestones. This cultivates a supportive environment where everyone feels equipped to tackle challenges.
Despite what many believe, you don’t need a massive sales team or complex pricing and configurations to benefit from CPQ. Instead, consider the challenges that plague your sales processes. These could include a high rate of quote errors, lost prospects due to slow quoting, or non-compliant contracts.
A highly effective CPQ solution can help you avoid these problems and make your organization look more professional. Moreover, it allows you to streamline quoting and ensure that every quote is accurate. This is essential because as many as 86% of consumers will stop doing business with a company after experiencing just one bad customer experience. CPQ software is designed to remove human error, ensuring your quotes meet customer expectations and provide a great buying experience. It also helps you achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.
Increased Sales Efficiency
CPQ can increase sales efficiency by streamlining the quoting process, eliminating manual steps, and providing more consistent data to sales reps. This lets them quickly generate accurate quotes, improving the customer experience and leading to a higher close rate.
It can be challenging for a small business to keep up with many quotes that must be sent to prospective customers. Inaccurate pricing and configuration errors can cost a company money, so someone must review these quotes before they are sent out to ensure they are correct. This is a time-consuming task that can take time to scale.
With a CPQ system, these mistakes can be avoided, and the process can be streamlined to save time. It also decreases the time a sales rep spends generating quotes, allowing them to spend more time selling to consumers. This can increase sales performance and overall business growth. The best part is that a CPQ software solution can automate this process, increasing sales efficiency.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
Despite popular belief, organizations don’t need to reach a certain number of salespeople or have highly complex pricing and configurations before considering CPQ. The critical determinant is the time and resources your team spends on generating quotes and the accuracy and speed of those processes.
A slow, inaccurate quoting process creates a bad customer experience. While some customers might be willing to overlook an error in your quote, most will leave you for a competitor that provides the same products and services at a better value. CPQ removes human error from the equation and delivers accurate, dependable quotes you can trust.
CPQ also streamlines the process by providing cross- and upsell recommendations to drive additional revenue and promote brand loyalty. Automated pricing mechanisms help protect profit margins by preventing rogue discounting and ensuring that all discounts fall within predetermined parameters. As a result, CPQ increases the overall satisfaction of your organization’s sales teams and customers. And happy salespeople are more likely to drive higher quota attainment and improved sales performance.
