Creating Personalized Billing Experiences With CPQ

Traditional billing systems lack flexibility, leading to inefficiency, errors, and customer dissatisfaction. They struggle to adapt to unique customer needs, resulting in generic and impersonal billing experiences.

CPQ (configure, price, quote) software is changing this. While it’s primarily a sales tool used to streamline and automate the quote-to-cash cycle, integrating it with billing processes allows for a more personalized and seamless experience across the entire customer lifecycle.

In today’s article, I’ll dive into how to use CPQ to personalize your billing activities and take your customer experience to the next level.

Getting Personal: How CPQ Enables Personalized Billing

Really, what is personalized billing?

In a nutshell, it’s the ability to tailor your pricing strategies, billing processes, and communication to individual customers. Although it’s impossible to cater to every customer’s unique needs, CPQ empowers you to create pricing models and billing processes that can accommodate a variety of preferences and requirements.

Customization

At its core, CPQ is about creating personalized quotes for customers. As part of that, it allows you to customize product features and pricing based on their needs and preferences. This customization extends to billing and invoicing — the next steps after a customer accepts a quote.

With CPQ, you can configure bills and invoices to contain:

• Customized pricing tiers
• Flexible billing cycles
• Personalized discounts and promotions
• Price breaks
• Customer-specific branding and language
• Detailed breakdowns of add-on services

You can even configure multi-year ramp deals, usage-based subscription pricing, and complex pricing models involving multiple products and services.

If billing and CPQ are connected, all you have to do when a customer accepts your quote is hit “generate invoice” or “send bill.” The rest happens automatically.

Automation

Document generation is a key CPQ feature, and it’s one of the ways CPQ streamlines billing. Of course, the application creates a smooth, seamless flow from configuration to cost estimate to detailed price breakdown. But most systems take it a step further.

Without leaving the application, you can generate an invoice, purchase order, or contract from the sales quote. In the case of subscription billing, the system will automatically charge the customer’s credit card and send an invoice on a recurring basis via email, based on the agreed-upon billing cycle.

Transparency

Since it starts with quote and configuration data, CPQ excels in offering transparent billing information. It ensures all your invoices include detailed line items to clarify what customers are paying for, just like it did on the quote. For usage-based components, it can also show consumption data to help customers understand what they’re paying for each month.

You can also integrate CPQ with your microsite or customer self-service portal, where customers can access their billing info anytime. They can view historical invoices, track usage, and understand billing changes.

By providing such detailed and accessible information, CPQ empowers customers with knowledge, fostering trust and satisfaction.

Data-Driven Insights

CPQ is the tool most directly involved in every sale. You use it to configure products, calculate and optimize pricing, and deliver quotes to every customer. And that means it’s got a front-row seat to all the customer data and preferences driving your sales.

CPQ software uses historical purchase data and customer interactions to offer:

• Personalized discounts that add value for both parties
• Customized add-ons and upselling opportunities
• Usage-based promotions, which encourage customers to increase their engagement or consumption
• Loyalty programs and tailored incentives

By analyzing customer behavior and preferences, you can also use CPQ to improve your pricing strategies and billing cycles. For instance, you might offer monthly and yearly subscription plans but realize there’s a lot of intermittent demand for your product. So you implement a weekly billing cycle at a higher proportional rate to capture shorter-term demand.

Adding Value: Benefits of CPQ and Billing Integration

The average company has 2,000+ data silos. There are plenty of factors that cause this, but disparate systems are the most common (and the easiest fix).

By integrating your billing and CPQ activity, you bridge the final gap in the quote-to-cash process — the one between customer acceptance and actual payment.

With an automated, personalized billing process, you’ll see the following:

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Two-thirds of B2B buyers say they expect the same (or greater) levels of personalization in their professional lives as they do in their personal ones. Efficient billing with CPQ enables you to cater to individual customer preferences and requirements through customized pricing, discounts, and billing cycles.

When it’s time to pay (or, in the case of subscription billing, when it’s time to pay again), your billing platform will automatically send out a reminder before the deadline. It’ll do the same when contracts are up for renewal, as well as when you introduce new offers, price plans, or products that might interest them. That way, you’ve always got an open dialogue with each customer.

Increased Revenue

Accurate billing prevents revenue leakage — a common issue where businesses lose revenue due to errors in pricing, under-billing, or the inability to enforce agreed-upon pricing terms. When the quoted price and details stay consistent in post-sale billing and invoice generation, revenue accuracy improves. Plus, you’ll see fewer disputes, and you’ll reinforce customer trust.

Companies using CPQ also see significant improvements in their key financial metrics. They report 105% higher average order values, 17% higher conversion rates, and enhanced revenue through effective upselling and cross-selling.

Further along in the customer lifecycle, billing data will feed into business intelligence. You can figure out what pricing and billing models work best for various customer groups and segments, which guides future deals.

Enhanced Operational Efficiency

CPQ and billing automation work together to drastically reduce the processing time for sales quotes and orders. With automated pricing and billing updates, you’ll see fewer errors (if any) compared to manual invoicing. Plus, your finance team can close out books faster with automated revenue recognition and reconciliation.

Streamlined Sales and Billing Processes

At the same time, more than three-quarters (77%) of buyers describe their last purchase as “difficult” or “very complex.” Eliminating friction in sales and billing processes is far and away the best strategy for keeping buyers happy, retaining them, and turning them into advocates long-term.

CPQ systems facilitate faster and more accurate quote generation and customer self-service, cutting down sales cycle time and enhancing the buying experience. In fact, it takes a non-CPQ user 73% more time to generate a quote. But sales cycle times are cut by 28% when businesses invest in a quoting tool.

Meeting Customer Expectations in Billing

In a market where customers have high expectations for tailored services and quick responses, companies that leverage CPQ can differentiate themselves from competitors, Accurate and transparent billing processes, enabled by CPQ integration, build trust and credibility with customers. In turn, this nets you higher satisfaction levels and fosters long-term relationships.

When selecting a CPQ vendor, consider their ability to (a) integrate with your current billing and/or subscription management platform or (b) offer a microservice-based billing solution that complements their CPQ software.