How to Resolve Quoting-Related Issues using Configure Price Quote Solutions?

As the owner of a product-based company, what is your ultimate aim of running the business? To increase the bottom line! Right? However, by quoting products manually you are severely damaging your bottom line.

From wasting time to causing frustration to customers, manually quoting is the biggest mistake that could altogether stop the growth of your business. To ensure a smooth and seamless quoting process, what better way than using Configure price quote solutions.

Here are 5 quoting issues that can be easily solved with a CPQ software:

1. No Access to Up-to-Date Information

Working with spreadsheets to create quotes is the worst thing you could do for your business. When spreadsheets contain large quantities of product information, keeping them up-to-date is no easy job.

Just imagine when multiple users are accessing the spreadsheet, keeping it free from outdated information can be an arduous task. Precious time is wasted in updating spreadsheets manually.

CPQ quoting tool provides real-time product information while creating quotes. All the information related to complex product pricing and customer data is stored at one central location, which is updated in real-time.

2. Missed Upsells/Cross-sells

When products are quoted using spreadsheets, too much time is spent on correcting errors and completing the task in hand. As a result, this leaves hardly any room for implementing upsell/cross-sell opportunities.

Value added resellers (VARs) in particular find it difficult to upsell/cross-sell products. CPQ solution for VARs have upsell/cross-sell opportunities built into its system.

While you are creating a quote, a CPQ tool automatically suggests the right upselling/cross-selling opportunities. Thus, while developing a quote, relevant accessories that go well with the original product are automatically displayed in your quote. You don’t have to really worry about what products to upsell/cross-sell when using CPQ systems.

3. Quoting marred with Blunders and Mistakes

When product and customer-related information is stored at multiple locations, how can you expect your quoting to be error-free?

Creating quotes when information is scattered in different sheets is very tedious and error-prone. Also, keeping track of information such as customers eligible for discounting is not easy. Due to quoting errors, the customers often have been overcharged.

On the other hand, CPQ tools are designed to create error-free quotes no matter how complex the requirement is. Studies have shown that errors are completely eliminated when the process is automated using a CPQ tool.

Whether a customer is eligible for free shipping, discounts, or special offers, you can correctly handle it with an appropriate CPQ system.

4. Slow Approval Process

When enterprises employ manual methods of quoting, their approval process is found to be inefficient. They heavily depend on emails for communication. There is too much back and forth between the customer and enterprise before the quote is finally accepted.

A CPQ system is designed to speed up your approval process. It helps you to easily keep track of quote revisions. After the quote has been sent to the customer, you can know when the customer has opened the quote.

5. Inaccurate Discounts

Are your sales reps giving overgenerous discounts to your customers? Is excessive discounting damaging your bottom line? Well, this a common problem when using spreadsheets for quoting.

Sales reps tend to offer inaccurate discounts for quoted products. This may be due to calculation errors or lack of rules that prevent sales reps from giving excessive discounts.

Automated systems like CPQ software enable you to define pricing rules according to the customer profile. This ensures ‘too much discounting’ is never offered to customers and your profits remain intact.

Conclusion

When you want to simplify your whole CPQ process and save time in selling a wide range of product configurations, choose a CPQ software. It will help you to streamline your quoting process and close more deals, which will ultimately benefit your bottom line.