Chances are, you have interacted with customers on multiple occasions who demand highly personalized, elaborate, and complex quotes. Delivering a fast and customized experience to the buyer is no cakewalk and usually tends to overwhelm your sales team. Further, with cut throat competition in the market, it becomes mandatory for your sales team to come off as prompt and efficient, so as not to lose a sales deal. The process of converting a customer to a potential client is an exhaustive one and it demands utmost efficiency.
To handle varied customers with complex product offerings and quotes, businesses tend to gravitate towards sales technologies such as cpq software. A configure price quote software turns out to be a real game-changer in such scenarios.
According to a report, 71% of customers expect businesses and sellers to communicate with them in the early stages of the buying process.
The introduction of a CPQ solution brings efficiency to the business ecosystem. It makes it easier for a sales team to perform all the actions quickly to get the quote in the hands of the customer as soon as possible.
Why CPQ?
When it comes to waving off the excess burden during a sale process of a complex product- CPQ sure works as a boon. It essentially takes care of everything.
It starts with the Configuration part. According to the customer’s requirements, all the configurable nodes, elements, and options are processed through an ERP or CAD system. The outcome visualized product is then transferred to a built-in interface to take a look at the blueprint. After the features and components are finalized, the CPQ solution uses its AI technology to come up with the pricing. This is done by determining the customer’s buying pattern and analyzing their willingness to pay for the configured product. This helps the business to come up with pricing that is reasonable for their customer and helps them to maintain healthy profit margins.
On top of it, the CPQ software also allows the business to offer customized discounts and rules for their customers without compromising the system. But it doesn’t stop here. When running a business, it is critical to understand that while a potential client asks your company for a product quote, they are more often than not reaching out to other potential vendors as well. They do this to compare and select the company that best caters to their needs. The right product with the right pricing is the key. And most important to showcase how you stand out from your competition is presenting the customer with a distinctive quote. A well-made quote can do more wonders than you think. It is like the last straw that can efficiently convert potential sales if executed correctly. And thus, a CPQ solution’s final step is tailoring quotes for your customers. It helps you personalize and customize the quotes keeping individual customers and their needs in mind. A tailor-made quote makes a customer feel special, thus leaving an excellent impression.
While CPQ software can do wonders for a business, it is essential to understand if your business needs its extra hand or not. But don’t worry, we’ve got some factors laid out for you. Being cognizant of them will make it straightforward for you to decide whether a CPQ solution is needed for your business or not.
- The most obvious sign would be catering to customers who require highly complex and personalized solutions.
- Your business is lagging in sales conversion, and the primary reason for it is erroneous quotes. If your quotes aren’t well structured and are highly prone to human errors.
- Your company fails to estimate the correct product cost and lacks the right profit margin.
- You are losing out on customers due to inadequate speed and efficiency.
- The sales process of your offered products is comparatively lengthy.
- The majority of your customers’ satisfaction levels aren’t met.
Suppose your business is facing any of the issues mentioned above. In that case, it is high time to include CPQ software in your selling process.
How to choose the right CPQ software for your business?
Different CPQ platforms cater to different business needs. In such scenarios, it becomes necessary to thoroughly go through each CPQ solution to determine which one suits your business best. Any mistake in choosing an appropriate CPQ solution could compromise your sales and do more harm than good for your business.
Here are some factors to consider when choosing a configure price quote software for your business.
The CPQ Architecture- Native or Hybrid
When it comes to the architectural build, CPQ software generally comes in two forms. A native CPQ architecture is built to work with a specific CRM and cannot be used with any other CRM system. Whereas a Hybrid CPQ architecture can integrate and work with any CRM or ERP system.
When running a local enterprise business, with one particular CRM or ERP solution used by all the sales team, you can safely go with a CPQ solution with native architecture.
But when it comes to global enterprise business, chances are- different location sales teams might use different CRM and ERP solutions. Hunting down and tracking each location’s sales team’s system can be quite a task. Further, finalizing an ill-suited CPQ solution in such a case could bring you big trouble. That is why a Hybrid CPQ software works best in such scenarios. It eliminates the need for you to reinvest and re-implement different platforms in different regions, thus saving your time and money.
Rules and Constraints of the Configuration Engine
A CPQ solution stands for Configure, Price, and Quote. And thus, whenever you go to implement an integrated CPQ software– the first thing it would do is ‘Configure’. Configuring in a configure price quote software can be of two types. A “rule-based configuration engine” and a “constraints-based configuration engine”. While both of them have their respective advantages and disadvantages, it is crucial to understand and choose the one that best suits your business needs.
If your company deals with clients who demand simple products, then you can go with a rule-based engine. It is much simpler and easier to use. All you have to do is write the required rules in the CPQ administration tool, and it would work like a charm!
But if you sell products that are highly personalized and customized as per your customer’s needs, then we would suggest you opt for a CPQ solution that has a constraint-based configurable engine. Your sales reps can easily manage a complex set of customer requirements with constraint-based CPQ software. For complex systems, just writing rules would not cut it for most of them or would require lots of rules to be written for the system to work efficiently. A constraint-based configurable engine saves you from all this hassle, helping to process the ‘Configure’ part quickly.
Quoting Techniques
Many CPQ software solutions have some limitations when it comes to quoting performance. Adding more products and services to the overall quote makes it tougher to execute accurately. A lot of native CPQ solutions which are designed for a specific CRM can only handle quotes that are up to 2,500 line items. Not only this, several CPQ solutions slow down significantly when processing quotes with as many as 100 products.
Thus, when considering any CPQ software, it is crucial to ask for a demo. A demo helps you analyze the software’s capabilities – the number of lines it can efficiently support, its performance, and its ability to handle the workload of added products. These two factors can play an important role when finalizing a suitable CPQ product. Good software would be the one that keeps up with its performance even after taking into account the alterations and product loads.
Also, having a sales quoting system that can be easily customized is necessary. If your sales team needs to make any changes, they should be able to do so without any hassle.
This ensures a CPQ system that is scalable, speedy, and flexible as per your business’s requirements.
Collaborative Tendencies
With a surge of CPQ solutions in the market, many claim to be highly integrable. A configure price quote software with eCommerce integration can do wonders for a business. It can provide the same level of capabilities to the customers as it provides to the sales team. But it is not true for all the CPQ solutions. Different CPQ software solutions come with different levels of integration. And it becomes essential to choose the solution that goes best with your business and its requirements.
Some pointers to consider when looking for an integrable CPQ system:
The level of collaboration allowed between a buyer and the vendor.
Transparency to the company when a client customizes a product.
How prices for different products and elements are handled.
While it serves as an attractive idea and source for a customer-buyer collaboration, understanding all the limitations and powers of your configure price quote software can be beneficial.
Closing Phrase
With several fishes in the market, it becomes difficult to choose a CPQ solution that suits your business the best. But with the right tools and techniques, you can get a solution that would be an ultimate boon for your company. A befitting configure price quote software not only eases the pain of the business but also of their clients. A faithful client base that trusts your sales process is imperative for establishing your standing in the market. And so, if your business needs, you definitely should consider including a CPQ solution in your sales process lifecycle.
