5 Key Benefits of Implementing CPQ Software in Your Sales Process
CPQ software delivers an incredible return on investment when configured and deployed correctly. It results in a more profitable sales process and a better selling experience for your reps.
CPQ tools empower your sales team to become quicker, more accurate quotes and subject matter experts. They also provide a more consistent customer experience, increasing retention rates.
Streamlined Sales Process
Using CPQ Software streamlines the sales process by automating pricing and configuration to eliminate errors and increase quoting speed. The platform enables your team to follow the playbook, upsell and cross-sell confidently, and provide a more personalized customer experience.
When your sales reps can respond quickly to customers and confidently generate accurate quotes, it is more likely that they will win the business. Sales organizations can save 73% of the time spent on creating and sending customer quotes and proposals when using a CPQ system.
Among the benefits of CPQ software is that it allows your sales teams to configure products and services based on customer specifications while using a rules engine to determine product combinations that align with your organization’s pricing rules. It also allows your teams to collaboratively design quotes in parallel and create stunning proposal templates, which can be sent for approval and signed electronically. It can even automatically generate CAD models and BOMs to simplify engineering processes and improve sales-to-engineering collaboration. This all happens through a cloud-based CPQ solution, saving your organization on costly hardware and IT fees.
Increased Efficiency
Today’s business buyers expect to interact with tech-savvy sales reps who can answer their questions quickly and correctly. However, a misquote or an inaccurate product configuration can leave a customer with a wrong impression, leading to lost costly sales opportunities. CPQ eliminates human error by delivering accurate quotes your sales team can count on.
A CPQ system can also save your team time by automating the quoting process. This means that your salespeople can spend less time filling out forms or attending business meetings and more time nurturing their relationships with customers. CPQ software can also reduce onboarding times for new sales representatives by handling the heavy lifting of product configuration and quoting processes with predefined rules and pricing information.
CPQ software can also help you achieve more profit by preventing discounting from eroding your overall deal margin. The system uses a sophisticated engine to account for all the add-ons a prospect may request and ensure that prices stay within your target margin. This is especially important as manufacturers adopt new business models like solution-as-a-service and value-added services to grow revenue and create a loyal customer base.
Reduced Errors
Using CPQ software, sales reps can eliminate manual processes and human errors often caused by misinterpreting pricing information. This means a more accurate quote that the buyer can count on.
Sales teams are often overburdened with repetitive and time-consuming tasks that need to be done before they can send a quote to customers. These tasks may include complex product configurations, specialized discounting and promotions, and contract and document generation. A CPQ solution can streamline these processes, automate approval workflows, and enable real-time team collaboration.
This allows them to focus on the selling process, which can help increase their productivity and lead to higher quota attainment. It also helps them to deliver a better customer experience by shortening the time between when the buyer explores the products and when they receive an indication of cost. Additionally, CPQ software can automate upselling and cross-selling for items your sales team needs to familiarize themselves with. This can improve sales efficiency and productivity for new and experienced sales representatives.
Automated Pricing
The automated capabilities of CPQ software help reduce the time it takes for sales reps to create quotes. Instead of waiting for engineering to validate configurations, which can slow down the process, CPQ software automatically synchronizes data between ERP, PLM, PIM, and DAM to make product information and pricing models available to sales teams when needed.
This allows your team to move faster without sacrificing accuracy and quality. In addition, CPQ eliminates the need to manually calculate bundle and quote totals so that sales teams spend more time nurturing high-value customer relationships, prospecting, and closing deals.
Additionally, CPQ ensures that pricing and configuration rules are followed so your sales team can confidently deliver a professional, accurate, compliant quote to every customer. This can also increase the likelihood of a sale by reducing the number of times your sales team is caught off guard by a pricing question.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
When sales teams don’t have to spend so much time following up with contract status and pricing accuracy, they can devote more energy to nurturing high-value relationships, closing deals, and securing customer loyalty. Companies across industries ranging from computer hardware to healthcare can boost sales efficiency and profitability by using CPQ tools.
A CPQ product configurator can create quotes that provide greater clarity to customers and encourage them to spend more with your company. These quotes can include nested bundles, one-time or subscription-based pricing rules, and advanced discounts like loyalty, referral, and bundling offers.
When selecting a CPQ solution, ensure it can integrate seamlessly with your CRM, ERP, and MES systems so that data is always up-to-date. It’s also essential that your CPQ vendor provides comprehensive training and adoption strategies so that your sales team is confident in using the software. In addition, look for a CPQ with a feature for seamless renewal processes to prevent involuntary churn and reduce reliance on manual processes.
