Andrew Parker
CPQ is the key sales software for businesses in industries that sell complex and changeable products. CPQ software features allow a sales team to improve customer sales, improve efficiency, and hit higher targets. CPQ will have a positive impact on your business and its bottom line.
Whether it is allowing the customer to easily design their product, or helping your sales team automatically generate quotes, the fact remains the same. The CPQ software market is expected to grow by 1.49 billion by 2025, showing how much businesses are beginning to value it. CPQ software features are incredibly useful and help take your business to the next level.
Visual Product Configurations
When the customer can see what they are buying, it inevitably aids the success rate of purchasing. Without being able to see their potential product, they may opt for a competitor or pass it by. Visualization brings the product to life and highlights the lack of it for the potential buyer.
In the CPQ market, most solutions will show 2D images that give more contextual information and give updates. A 3D visualization helps take this to the next level, giving product configurations that can show products with different designs and from different perspectives.
Visual features help users change components and measurables to explore every angle. This gives the average customer a more realistic expectation of their order and will help them see the product more clearly.
The advancement of VR technology has allowed customers to immerse themselves in virtual reality. This technology and CPQ software feature allows customers to be in virtual reality when making product configurations, so they can see first-hand the changes to their product or environment.
For products like medical equipment, complex production buildings, fitness facilities, and more, VR gives a hyper-intensive look into a product. This enhancement leads to more customer satisfaction, higher levels of revenue, and more leads to new business through a modern approach.
Advanced Rules Engine
As CPQ software features are heavily aimed at a complex production or solution business, they need to be aimed at solving and preventing errors.
Errors in this industry are incredibly costly. It can lead to huge financial loss, customer dissatisfaction, and even closure.
A business without CPQ would need to rely on external stakeholders like sales or billing to notice these kinds of errors, but CPQ software with an advanced rules engine feature can solve this problem.
An advanced rules engine can prevent miscalculations, and incorrect quotes and stop pricing and bundlings that are not profitable. A customizable engine is a CPQ software feature that allows the business to configure products accurately.
Cloud-Based, Mobile-Friendly, CPQ Solution
In today’s fast-paced world, a sales team needs the technology to maneuver when working with customers. To allow for quick and easy access to pricing, proposals, or orders, a CPQ solution is mobile-friendly and cloud-based to take the sales team to a new level.
By utilizing cloud-based CPQ software, your team can access the system at any time and particularly at client meetings. A mobile-friendly user experience allows your sales team to present important information with ease.
At the core, cloud-based software enhances the customer experience more than anything. Acting more time-efficient it can make a customer feel more valued. They can get a detailed price quote quickly and precisely.
Having the CPQ cloud-based not only makes the tool more accessible but also saves money through IT costs and installation. With these overheads cut out, the return on investment in the software only grows.
Automated Quoting and Pricing Management
Sales workers can find their time wasted when not trying to sell a product or solution. Sales reps only spend a third (35.2%) of their time selling. Filling out forms, data entry into CRM platforms, and attending business meetings can take up a lot of a salesperson’s time.
CPQ software features can make alleviate this problem, providing automation that reduces the number of time-consuming tasks. CPQ software can ensure that quotes are updated simultaneously as customers amend their orders. This process reduces mistakes and gives your sales team that additional time to put toward closing deals.
Pricing management can be used to help different verticals throughout the business including marketing and others. For example, if marketing wanted to run a campaign including a package or discount, they could ensure through automatic quoting and pricing management that this is implemented for a certain duration.
This automation and pricing management feature also extend its benefits company-wide. Any automatic updates go across the system, allowing for more timely and accurate information.
Guided Selling
Guided selling is another CPQ software feature that can improve sales productivity.
The process of guided selling enables customers to create their perfect product without distracting a sales rep and taking up their time. Using personalized forms and questionnaires at the start of the process can help show the customer the precise product they need.
The results and answers are fed back to the sales team so they can add their input and expertise on product lines and bundles, increasing profit through this method.
Guided selling can be set up as a feature to automatically pop up and direct the customer through the product catalog. The system will display the products using any information given by the customer.
Integration into ERP/CMS Systems
Your typical sales worker has six systems they use during the selling process.
CPQ software features include the ability to integrate and work with these systems that help work collaboratively and share data sets with the wider team. CRM and ERP platforms are good examples that help share key information with CPQ software to allow sales teams to respond faster and more efficiently.
Integrated CRM and CPQ systems allow users to control the whole process from one place, all without needing to open multiple programs or go through repetitive data entry. CPQ can simply work as an additional tab in most CRM tools, helping the sales team be much more effective and efficient.
The sales team can also utilize this feature to cross-sell and upsell bundles, increasing revenue and up-selling opportunities.
Reporting
CPQ software features include reporting, a crucial tool that allows you to analyze the order and buying process and see customer journeys.
You can use this data to see where customers are leaving the process, which is the most popular configurations, and see which bundles, packages, and discounts do best with different customers.
This information can allow you to make important changes to the order experiences, increasing customer happiness and sales success long term.
CPQ software is the best tool to take sales to the next level and boost productivity and revenue. Features include automation, reporting, integration, and visualization to enhance all areas of your business.
Andrew is a professional copywriter with expertise in creating content focused on business-to-business (B2B) software. He conducts research and produces articles that provide valuable insights and information to his readers.
