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CPQ solutions help automate and accelerate sales processes. They are a vital component of B2B digital transformation.
Using a CPQ solution, salespeople deliver more precise, winning quotes. Salespeople who use CPQ provide 20.9 proposals, quotes, or RFP responses per month compared to 14 for those without a CPQ system.
Eliminate Manual Workflows
CPQ, also known as Configure Price Quote or sales configuration software, helps businesses automate manual workflows by providing guided selling features that allow for creating product packages and solutions for customers. Typically, it’s used for business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, but it can also be applied to subscription-based businesses.
Previously, producing quotes required manual processes that were time-consuming and error-prone. For instance, a salesperson would need to find the right products from a catalog or a spreadsheet, determine how these products could be bundled, select appropriate accessories and upgrades, and calculate prices that factor in discounts, special pricing, or additional services or add-ons.
With a CPQ system, all these steps are simplified and automated, enabling sales reps to generate quotes more quickly and accurately. This means that the sales team and the client can benefit from faster, more accurate proposals, leading to a better buying experience for everyone involved.
If you’re looking for a CPQ solution, first assess the needs of different groups within your organization. Consider what your Sales Management and Operations teams are facing. What issues are they struggling with, such as a lack of standardized pricing, complex configurations, inconsistent discounting, and non-compliant contracts? Ensure that any CPQ system you choose can address these issues. Also, ensure it integrates with your existing systems to reduce data siloes and improve overall efficiency.
Eliminate Errors
CPQ solutions allow sales reps to create quotes without going back and forth with the office. This will enable them to be much more efficient and return to their prospects. It also eliminates the errors that can happen with the manual process. This can save companies money that they would have otherwise lost due to pricing miscalculations or rogue discounts.
Besides eliminating errors, the software ensures that salespeople follow set margins and other pricing policies. It also automatically routes discounted deals to the appropriate approvers. In addition, one of the benefits of CPQ solution is that it can guide sales reps through upsells and cross-sells that increase deal size and the overall value of the offer to the customer.
Implementing a CPQ solution is a complex undertaking that requires cross-organizational support. It is essential to understand the needs of each group and what they want to achieve from the project. Sales management and operations may wish to increase quota attainment, improve sales performance, or reduce time spent on admin tasks. Finance and legal may have different priorities, such as controlling discounting or ensuring that contracts comply with laws.
The CPQ project team must include representatives from each function to ensure that everyone’s needs are met. It is also essential to identify the pain points that the project will address so that it has a high chance of success.
Increase Productivity
When sales reps are armed with accurate and winning information, they deliver more precise quotes. This improves their win rate by reducing the number of quotes they need to make, with Aberdeen showing that reps who use CPQ solutions deliver 2.42 versions of sections, compared to 3.2 for those who don’t use it.
A CPQ solution allows you to customize each proposal so that it speaks directly to your customer’s needs and highlights the unique value of your product or service. You’ll be able to create different recommendations for each type of customer and even allow customers to build their custom configurations – much like the Starbucks app that lets you configure your coffee order and gives you a price using an algorithm (price add-ons plus base price of size and drink type).
With timely communication & round clock accessibility, CPQ helps you maximize revenue with minimum time & cost. Get in touch today to learn how CPQ could help your business.
Implementing a CPQ solution will impact your entire organization and require a change in how you work. It’s essential to secure alignment, agreement on targets and strategy for your CPQ project before you begin. This will ensure the success of your CPQ implementation and will increase the likelihood that it brings the desired results.
Increase Revenue
CPQ Solutions automate many of the processes in your sales cycle, reducing manual steps and errors. This allows your team to focus on serving customers and landing deals, increasing revenue for your business.
It also eliminates mistakes, which are often costly. Missed or inaccurate quotes, product configurations that don’t meet regional rules, sending the wrong products, and other errors will no longer burden your sales teams. Ultimately, eliminating these errors can shorten your sales cycles even further.
Additionally, a CPQ solution should include document generation capabilities that make it easy for your sales team to create professional and complete proposals. This can help increase the quoting speed, improve proposal consistency, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.
Finally, a CPQ solution should provide real-time pricing automation. This will allow your team to offer customers accurate and up-to-date pricing information and enable them to serve a more diversified set of customers with better margins.
It’s important to note that implementing a CPQ solution will require you to change your way of working. The best way to prepare your organization for this is to ensure stakeholder agreement on the goals and ambitions of your CPQ project and then formalize the CPQ implementation as a cross-functional business development project. This approach will help ensure that all stakeholders see the value of the new tool and that it’s integrated into your current systems and workflows.
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