Sales can’t be restricted to “mere” financial deals anymore; it is a business collaboration with customers. In the fast-paced, agile world, customers are more involved in the sales process than ever. According to a recent survey, 76% of customers would discontinue their business with an organization after one poor customer experience. No doubt then that it takes two to tango – product manufacturing and supply-demand chain.
To lead the competitive marketplace, companies should be flexible enough to swiftly respond to changing needs while aiming to deliver high-quality products and services. However, companies face challenges that limit their sales potential. Favorably, Salesforce CPQ can mitigate most of these challenges.
What Is Salesforce CPQ?
CPQ is Configure, Price, and Quotes – an agile and smart cloud-enabled solution for companies. It’s an innovative Salesforce product that uses marketing and customer data to reduce Quote-to-Order (Q2O) cycle risks. Furthermore, it facilitates companies to conduct complex product configurations easily, offering the best pricing models and swiftly generating quotes. Overall, it facilitates the delivery of the best solution to clients at the perfect time for the best price through an optimum channel.
The sales and service enablement team wants reduced sales cycles, appointment upliftment, and increased sales efficiency. To that end, Salesforce CPQ benefits sales reps by speeding up the estimation and quotation process by considering all variables. Likewise, it leverages client databases to deliver customized quotes to customers. As a result, it reduces errors and automates the procedure.
Why Is Salesforce CPQ So Important?
The ultimate test for every seller is to develop specific quotes for complex products in distinct situations. This is a common theme with intricate and high-value products and services. In such industries, it is necessary to drive relevance and furnish accurate quotes.
Salesforce CPQ not only streamlines the quote creation process but also arms an organization with the acumen for sales operations. Using CPQ, teams can monitor the number of deals closed and the ones in progress. Companies can utilize this information to make data-driven decisions that benefit the business and stakeholders.
According to Salesforce, if CPQ software is implemented correctly, it can result in 10X quicker quote generation, 2X faster movement from quote to cash, and 95% reduced approval time.
How Does Salesforce CPQ Promote Sale Enablement in The Projects and Service-based Industry?
Salesforce CPQ increases the productivity of the company’s sales team. It allows companies to automate the sales process, including billing, tracking client payments, etc. Here’s how it promotes sale enablement in enterprises:
Transparent Sales Process
CPQ insights provide a holistic view that allows for determining what is working for the sales team and what’s the scope of improvement. The solution gives a strategic view involving sales activities by infusing intelligence into quotes, products, and service recommendations. In addition, it also facilitates customized dashboards and sales reports to identify profitable pricing models, prospective customers, and best-selling customers.
Improved Customer Experience
Salesforce helps with different transformations to manage complicated sales transactions. Precisely, CPQ streamlines customers’ journey across the sales pipeline, from one phase to another, starting from discovery to sales. It also records customer behavior to gain futuristic insights. Using rapid, effective, well-designed, and streamlined process flow, CPQ presents accurate quotes to customers to bridge the gap and encourage sales.
Leads Business Transformation
CPQ contributes to the process of quote-to-fulfillment. The application enhances the supply chain by helping speed up the warehouse processes and make intelligent decisions for inventory management. It’s here that CPQ can connect with Salesforce CRM, enabling sales reps to make the most of customer data and pave the way to improved sales performance.
Lean & Automated Service Delivery Model
CPQ automates product configuration with price calculation to give accurate quotes. As a result, the scope of rework is negligible. This creates a leaner process, which improves the business model and productivity.
Imagine a scenario wherein the sales agents are still using manual quotations. It takes more effort and time to apply bulk discounts, revise quotes according to regional offers, among others. Salesforce CPQ helps with active product configurations, gets prices, does auto calculations, and generates a proposal.
Active Selling Process
Salesforce CPQ integrates into the sales operations and adds intelligence to the agile operations. It reduces manual efforts drastically on simple tasks, thus making way to implement change management.
This automated platform also helps build self-managed processes like catalog management, approval workflows, data analytics and reporting, guided selling, and much more. This major transformation leads to well-managed collaboration between departments and sales channels for increased conversions.
Risk Mitigation
Because CPQ is a cloud-based model, it does not require a physical infrastructure. It is a secured system with synchronized secure and backed-up data. In addition, CPQ has a robust data management system that reduces inaccuracies. For example, incorrect pricing, miscalculated discounts, wrong client details, incorrect component details, and more can be avoided. As a result, it advocates for risk management and delivers the desired outcomes.
Altogether, Salesforce CPQ assists in enhancing the efficiency of sales, driving higher revenue. Sapours is a dedicated Salesforce consulting partner that assists companies in adopting and implementing the best cloud-enabled technology to manage complex tasks. Connect with us for a free consultation.