If you’ve been running a CRM solution, or even managing sales on an old-fashioned spreadsheet, its likely you’re looking for a smarter, faster, and more reliable way to do things. As your business continues to evolve and grow, your sales solutions need to keep up with the changes.
Is it time to make your software more scalable?
Fortunately, Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solutions are built with continued growth in mind and there is almost certainly a way to configure the software to your needs. Here are five reasons why your current sales environment could benefit from a smart CPQ system:
1. Add Products and Documents
A Configure, Price, Quote solution is primarily powered by the data it stores. As new products are developed and introduced, they’re added to the system, becoming easily accessible to the sales team. A CPQ system can successfully automate 80% of prices and promotions and produce 100% order accuracy.
This is an essential feature that is key to scaling. As your products and services narrow, broaden, and change, your CPQ tool will adapt accordingly. If increasing profit margins is the focus, CPQ can be used to create proposals that take that into account. If the average order value is too low, the sales team can use this when putting product bundles together and upselling in person or over the phone.
2. Tune Out Bottlenecks
If one part of your organisation is struggling to keep up, CPQ will make that particularly obvious. The aim is to sell more, and sell faster, which could dramatically affect departments like product and technology if they can’t provide what needs to be sold.
This is why its so essential to keep other departments in the loop when CPQ changes are being made. Other departments need to know what their role is, what to expect, and what they might need to change.
Even if all the relevant stakeholders are very prepared, delays and bottlenecks are a normal part of a growing business adjusting to its new demands. Once they’re dealt with, businesses can look forward to further growth and smoother processes.
3. Learn from Customer Behaviour
As your sales team interacts with customers, their preferences and habits will become data in your CPQ solution. These overall trends can inform strategies and process flows to win more customers and keep your existing ones happy.
Other departments have a stake in this too. If you have data to suggest customers need more information before they make their first contact with you, the marketing team can do something with that information.
Some data to pay attention to:
- How long does it take to convert from a lead to a sale?
- What knowledge gaps do customers have?
- What are their pain points? Have they all been solved?
- Do they buy again? When? What’s it triggered by?
- Have they upgraded their package and bought more? What were their reasons?
Its important to gather as much information as possible – the experience of one or two customers is important, but shouldn’t be generalised. Your CPQ solution will collate all this and turn it into actionable insights.
4. Prototype and Test Strategies
Before a strategy becomes a company-wide policy, its speed and effectiveness can be thoroughly tested with CPQ.
Shifting focus to a specific product or mode of upselling can be challenging, usually with all hands on deck. CPQ helps stakeholders through that process change, giving them the means to test, prototype, and iron out delays and bottlenecks with relative ease.
This gives managers and their teams plenty of time to familiarise themselves with the new strategy, prevents wasted cost, and ensures more confident launches.
5. Future-Proof Your Configure Price Quote Solution
Sustain your Configure, Price, Quote solution by investing in the right training for your team, to ensure that your people have the right skills and accreditations to be self-sufficient and be able to react to business changes when using your CPQ solution.
A CPQ implementation partner can provide you with the expertise your business needs to ensure that your solution is ready for the future of your business, whatever it that may be!
Walpole Partnership’s consultants have delivered some of the largest and most successful Configure, Price, Quote Solutions in Europe and the Middle East.
Download our free, in-depth e-book: The Complete Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Guide for Sales Professionals. Learn about how CPQ can beat your current sales challenges, how to choose the right system, and what sales results to expect.
