Using specialized software applications is perhaps one of the biggest decisions a company can take with the aim of delivering business outcomes faster and more efficiently.
Some of the most common software systems used by companies are ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CMS (Content Management System), PIM (Product Information Management), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), MAP (Marketing Automation Platform), and so on.
One of the most important components of sales management software, the system implemented for sales representatives, is a CPQ automation application. A CPQ software for small businesses helps them achieve their desired business outcomes at a higher scale.
Why Use CPQ Software
The positive pay-offs of using a CPQ billing system include an increase in average deal size by 105%, proposal volume by 49%, quote achievement frequency by 26%, lead conversion rate by 17%, and sales cycle completion speed by 28%.
Overall, this translates to the improved productivity of sales representatives by 33%.
“Empowering Your Sales Force: It’s Not Just Automation, It’s Personal”, a study by Accenture, has shown that 83% of companies already have some kind of CPQ implementation to accomplish operational outcomes in business with the aim of increasing customer retention and growing revenue.
However, just because the sales reps use an application does not guarantee that they are using it to its highest capacity.
Unless you utilize all the features of your CPQ platform that pertain to your operations, you are wasting its potential.
Salesforce CPQ
Salesforce CPQ and billing is a product that comes with the Sales Cloud. Its aim is to improve the speed and accuracy of making quotes, proposals, and contracts, tailoring them to the specific instance at hand, and giving them a branded appearance.
Subscription billing is one of the major Salesforce CPQ components that has been made highly advanced and intelligent keeping in the needs of most B2B companies.
Moreover, with the help of Einstein, the AI arm of B2B commerce in Salesforce, apps and APIs on AppExchange, and the Salesforce CPQ developer guide, you can further elevate your Salesforce CPQ implementation and make your work easier and better.
Using Salesforce CPQ billing, you can give your sales operations that extra edge to help automate tasks, attain key business outcomes, and increase revenue growth.
Key Elements of Salesforce CPQ to Optimize your Instance Utility
Most of the Salesforce CPQ features are designed to help sales representatives make the most of their opportunity to close a sales deal.
But, every CPQ and billing software application has some unique features that make it stand out among others. Five such elements in the Salesforce CPQ solutions are discussed below.
1) Price And Quote
When your company sells a large number of products and services, it is natural for them to be dependent on each other when sold.
Salesforce CPQ allows you to define such rules only once in the beginning and apply them universally throughout your business, without implementing them manually each time you discuss a sales deal.
Besides products, you can also set rules for the pricing of and discounts on products to be applied automatically.
If you want to use advanced rules like volume discounts, pre-negotiated contract pricing, percent-of-total subscriptions, or channel and partner pricing, Salesforce CPQ will assist you in the background.
Moreover, when a quote is generated and successfully passed, Salesforce automatically updates the system to include the new sale in the workflow and provides complete visibility and timely updates of the pipeline so that you never miss a deadline.
2) Orders And Renewals
Return business is the biggest source of revenue for most B2B businesses. Therefore, contract renewals form a significant part of the sales process in these companies.
However, without a well-equipped CPQ software application, sales reps may fumble and make mistakes in the renewal process, resulting in the loss of valuable clients.
Salesforce CPQ and billing takes the manual processing and guesswork out of the picture with automated renewal quote generations.
The previously generated and validated quotes are used as the basis for the creation of the renewal ones. This frees up sales reps to turn their focus on more important tasks.
Salesforce CPQ also automatically saves the pipeline along with future milestones as we mentioned above. Thus, sales reps are sent reminders when the time for renewal of a sales quote is coming up.
That way, no representative ever misses a renewal opportunity and can also take the opportunity to upsell or cross-sell to the client.
3) Product Configurator
The B2B sales process is a long one. The client may decide to change their order at any time, the sales rep may suggest a better deal to the customer, a new product or discount may come into the picture – and all of this can happen after a quote has already been created.
If your CPQ solution does not allow you to make changes to your quote once it has been generated, you will have to go through the entire process all over again.
For large quotes with hundreds of lines, that is nothing short of a herculean task and can lengthen the sales cycle greatly.
But Salesforce allows you to easily edit and update quotes, changing quantities, prices, discounts, and other variables easily like working on an editor.
Moreover, you can even reduce the chances of such changes by configuring the product bundle that you refer to when discussing with the client or the catalog that your prospect accesses.
By intelligently curating the products therein, you will also have greater control over the actions and direction of the client assigned to you.
Additionally, Salesforce CPQ automates the data entry process by connecting the CPQ software with the Product Catalog.
4) Guided Selling
With Guided Selling, your sales reps can easily modulate the sales process in a manner that suits your customer the best.
Your customers will be able to see the products that serve their needs, get the discounts that best suit their case, and receive the deal that will best address their pain points. But that is not all.
Guided Selling also makes the life of your sales reps easier. It applies to your business rules and assesses customer behavior and automatically steers the sales process in the right direction.
Therefore, your sales reps will not have to spend long periods in figuring all that out themselves and then navigating through complex catalogs and rules to take the right action.
5) Proposals and Contracts
Besides quotes, you also have to handle proposals and contracts. As a B2B company, these must bear the hallmark of your brand.
Salesforce CPQ allows you to customize and format the templates of your proposals and contracts to meet the branding standards of your company.
Also, you can produce either a PDF or MS Word version of it as well as integrate it with the digital signature app of your choice.
Forget your legacy system and update to the latest and best through Salesforce CPQ migration. With the help of Salesforce CPQ implementation best practices, you will be able to optimize your sales process for maximum impact.
Source: Salesforce CPQ Instance Utility
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