When a sales organization generates an accurate or updated business proposal, it gives the impression of unprofessionalism. CPQ Salesforce eliminates manual errors by unifying product configuration, pricing, and quoting in one solution.
Sales quotes and proposals must be accurate to impress and wow buyers. Often, these documents are passed between multiple teams and departments for approval.
Streamline the Sales Process
While some sales reps may be apprehensive about using a new tool, once the sales enablement platform has been streamlined and integrated into their day-to-day business processes, they’ll realize how much easier it is to work. This will help you reduce their time on administrative tasks and improve their productivity by enabling them to quote faster and more accurately.
This is made possible by CPQ integration with your CRM system. This makes CPQ easier to use and removes the need for manual data entry by enabling sales teams to access client data without switching between multiple platforms. It also helps to speed up the quoting process and improve team collaboration by providing a centralized source of information.
Combining CPQ with your ERP and order management solutions can automatically generate quotes based on pre-determined pricing rules and product data. This allows sales teams to provide more accurate quotes, leading to a better customer experience and higher ROI.
Eliminate Manual Data Entry
When sales reps rely on spreadsheets or manual calculations, it can be challenging to keep up with the volume of quotes needed to manage business growth and meet revenue goals. In addition, these manual processes suck up valuable time that could otherwise be spent nurturing customer relationships and generating new revenue.
CPQ software automatically processes the information used to create and deliver customer sales quotes, eliminating manual data entry, reducing errors, and providing real-time visibility into quote performance. It can even pre-populate fields based on product catalogs, pricing rules, discounts, and customer segmentation data, allowing sales representatives to provide more accurate quotes and improve the customer experience.
Once customers have approved a quote, CPQ integration with other sales systems like CRM and order management can automatically generate an order in the ERP based on the configured products. This simplifies converting quotes into production and shortens the sales cycle, improving quote-to-cash efficiency. It also eliminates the need to manually transfer order data from CPQ to ERP systems, further reducing errors and streamlining the process.
Automate Pricing and Quoting
Adding CPQ to your sales tech stack can significantly change your sales team. Planning and communicating the objectives and benefits of implementing a new solution is essential. Ensure your teams are ready to use the tool by providing extensive training sessions and documentation. You should also carefully plan and execute a data migration process to avoid the risk of incompatible systems and lost data.
Integrating CPQ with your ERP system lets you automatically update the configuration, price, and quote tools based on real-time inventory and product information from your enterprise resource management (ERP) program. This reduces errors and lets your sales team respond quickly to customer inquiries.
CPQ integration can also automate pricing calculations and discounting. This allows you to create a single, accurate quote with a template and route it to the appropriate parties for approval, further shortening timelines. Additionally, you can control margin erosion and limit rogue discounting by creating advanced approval triggers and establishing preprogrammed rules. The result is a faster, more efficient sales quote process and a more satisfying customer experience.
Automate Approval Processes
Many companies need help with long approval processes. When a salesperson sends a quote for review, they might feel like the deal is disappearing into an approval black hole. This can lead to frustration and a delay in service, which drives customers to seek service elsewhere. A CPQ solution integrated with other systems can provide automated approvals, speeding up the process and eliminating bottlenecks.
A CPQ system can enrich every quote with contextual information and instructions, including product specifications and customizations. It also pulls real-time inventory and pricing data from ERP, ensuring that quotes are accurate and up-to-date. This reduces the likelihood of errors such as quoting incorrect prices or a customer ordering a configuration your company can’t build.
Implementing a CPQ solution requires sales teams to change their workflows, which can take time and require some training. A good CPQ solution will offer structured user training and ongoing support to help new hires adopt the software quickly and easily. This will allow your team to increase the number of proposals they generate monthly, reduce the back-and-forth discussions required to reach a buying decision and improve overall sales performance.
Automate Lead Management
Inefficient sales processes can result in lost revenue opportunities. For example, sales reps spending too much time on non-selling activities like generating quotes, preparing proposals, and obtaining approvals prevent them from responding to leads promptly and growing the average customer deal size.
CPQ integration solves this problem by enabling sales reps to automate the quote generation process, resulting in faster and more accurate sales quotations. It also eliminates manual errors, which reduces overall costs and increases customer satisfaction.
CPQ tools offer numerous benefits, including unified product configuration and pricing, eSignature functionality, contract management, advanced analytics, and predictive modeling. As such, they help companies achieve a sustained competitive advantage by simplifying complex product offerings and streamlining the sales pipeline. However, it is essential to clearly define your objectives before implementing a CPQ tool in your workflow. By establishing clear goals, you can ensure the system is implemented correctly and maximizes efficiency. This will help to ensure that your sales team spends more time nurturing high-value relationships and closing deals rather than on repetitive administrative tasks.