Every business has one goal in mind- to leave a lasting impression on their customers. With this in mind, they are on the hunt for best-in-class technology bits that give an extra mileage in closing deals.
Spoiler Alert: CPQ does just that!
In this blog, we will walk you through 5 awe-inspiring benefits of CPQ that make it the most sought after sales tool by many B2B as well as B2C organizations.
- Faster Sales Cycle
You have reached the final days of closing a massive deal you have been chasing for so long. Naturally your sales team’s stress levels are at an all time high during those hours! To make things worse, you see them in the middle of a chaos and quote guessing game, showering your prospects with unrealistic expectations and well, discounts! Now wouldn’t you love the idea of shortening your sales cycle using a cutting edge technology that frees up costs all while improving your ROI? That’s exactly why you should consider implementing a CPQ solution. CPQ reduces wastage of your sales reps’ precious time by creating automated quotes rather than undertaking unimportant administrative tasks. According to Aberdeen Group, CPQ users shorten their sales cycle by 13%; reducing the average sales cycle from 4.68 months (non-CPQ users) to 3.42 months (CPQ users). The same study also revealed non-CPQ users had 7.1 conversations per deal, whereas CPQ users only had 6.6 conversations per deal. With CPQ, you can customize quotes on the spot which gains tremendous confidence from your customers. Whether it’s stakeholder approval or minor/major amendments required, rest assured that CPQ will take care of your sanity in those stress inducing scenarios and save you from last minute mishaps. - Improved Upsell and Cross-sell Opportunities through Guided Selling
Guided Selling is one of the most popular features of CPQ software. It gives your sales team a competitive advantage while understanding your customer’s unique requirements. Let’s take an example where you are looking for a rental apartment. When you browse through the rental websites, you will be given a couple of options regarding your preferences, like price range, location, number of rooms and so on. Now these filters will help you easily boil down to your preferred apartment. This is similar to guided selling in CPQ. When you have a wide range of products and services to offer, and you are confused regarding your customer preferences, this feature seamlessly cuts through the clutter and gives you precise information on what exactly your customer needs. This way your sales reps can create customized quotes for customers and have personalized communication with them through every stage of the sales cycle. - Increased Profit Margins
Many businesses come across leaky profit margins due to manual calculations of pricing quotes. Take for instance, when a sales rep missed adding set up costs or any other add-on products.
A robust cloud CPQ solution will help you automate your sales processes. It standardizes the pricing process, discards unyielding quote guesses and simplifies the entire lead to cash process. CPQ establishes preset pricing and approval rules which assures sales reps that they are creating the right quotes and using the updated price list. Next time, when your team resists the urge to give out untimely freebies to your customers, you will thank your CPQ software as it highly regulates and controls discounts too! Moreover, CPQ is the perfect tool for pricing complex international sales. It facilitates the most accurate international transactions with updated currency conversion techniques. - Error Free Quotes
Even if you have the world’s best sales team in your organization, you can’t always stay away from human errors. But yes, your business cannot always just ignore these errors, as inaccurate quotes can lead to lost deals. CPQ is a smart tool that creates highly accurate quotes and prevents errors and inconsistencies that may happen during the process, all thanks to the accurate product configuration rules. This not only saves you from being escalated by your head of department, but also compresses the sales cycle as it reduces frequent to and fro customer interactions resulting from human errors and helps close deals much faster. - Improved Customer Satisfaction
According to a survey conducted by Ovum, 76% of consumers stop doing business with a brand after only one bad customer experience. CPQ helps in delivering personalized customer service as well as helps sales reps stay ahead of their targets. For instance, when there is an upcoming contract upgrade or renewal, the CPQ software sends alerts which brings in better opportunities for the team to upsell or cross-sell. Also it can recommend best products, personalized quotes and other services to their customers, that too in real time.
Getting started on the CPQ journey? Stay tuned for our up and coming blog where we will discuss 3 industry examples on how CPQ can help improve their customer service and sales.