Automation and integration of systems are the keys to success in today’s fast-paced, global sales environment. To remain competitive, companies need solutions that deliver accurate and approved quotes to prospects in a timely manner. Incumbent homegrown solutions and Excel spreadsheets often slow down processes and deliver inaccurate proposals.
Sales organizations want to drive bigger and better business value through optimized selling strategies. Enterprise-grade CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) systems allow users to provide faster, error-free quotes and proposals that align with customer expectations, reducing the average sales time and maximizing sales efficiency.
Enabling a complex business process should not make the user’s life more complicated. In this slideshow, Model N has outlined five ways that sales teams can benefit from CPQ solutions.
Using CPQ to Optimize Sales
Click through for five ways that sales teams can benefit from CPQ solutions, as identified by Model N.
Increased Selling Time
CPQ accelerates sales cycles by automating the proposal and quote process across all channels. Sales professionals can reach more clients and focus on interactions because new quote generation time is reduced with information available electronically across all sales channels, any time. Sales productivity increases when sales reps are empowered to generate quotes without conferring with product experts because all the relevant information, prices and quoting rules are in one easily accessible solution.
Remove Barriers to Closing Deals
A streamlined internal approval process with automated workflows and pre-defined approval levels for product and service levels allows proposals and quotes to be generated easily and accurately. A CPQ solution should have all the latest pricing information and contain automated special pricing requests, minimizing the time drain on sales operations on reworking and approving requests.
Lose Fewer Deals to Competitors
CPQ systems offer automated special-pricing requests, and latest product and services information, so sales reps can create professional proposals and quotes with speed and flexibility, even from a mobile device. Internal delays are reduced, so deals can be closed faster with accurate, error-free quotes.
Maximize Sales with Intelligent Quotes
Every sales rep wants to create a quote that delivers all the right products and services to his/her customer. CRM and CPQ integration gives sales reps insight into a prospect’s or customer’s interests, increasing the opportunity to provide the best offering of products and solutions for more win potential. Accurate data and information can be used to create upsell and cross-sell opportunities for every prospect and customer across all sales channels when a CPQ solution provides insight into the most profitable services, product configurations and options that a customer is most likely to buy. An automated process using configuration rules streamlines selling and improves margins by suggesting the most profitable products that meet the customer’s needs, increasing sales size and customer satisfaction.
Increase Customer Satisfaction and Retention
Sales reps can receive alerts when it is time for customers to renew service contracts and replace products, recommending the best possible product, services and bundles for their needs. These alerts offer another opportunity for upsell and cross-selling by providing sales reps and sales managers with advance notice of new opportunities. They also improve retention rates by providing customers with accurate quotes that can be quickly turned into new sales.
