Benefits of Salesforce CPQ software for your sales Team

This article is originally posted at sculptor.cloud

Customers don't want to be burdened with details about your sales process or the intricacies of your product catalog.

The automation of business operations, especially in sales quotes, currently holds a prominent position in the development priorities of many firms. Automation has evolved significantly since the early days of CRM and ERP systems, including the Salesforce CRM platform. One of the prominent trends in business automation is automating sales rep workflows, such as approval templates, revenue reports, and customer interactions.

However, the benefits of Salesforce CPQ software go beyond these trends.

Implementing CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) solutions offers out-of-the-box capabilities, such as a product bundle configurator, guided selling, automated pricing rules, and interactive web quotes, to streamline sales flows.

Chief Financial Officers Meet CPQ

How can you identify internal signals indicating the need to tune up and automate business flows?

• How can a company assess the need for CPQ in its current business life cycle?
• Is investing in CPQ a reasonable decision?
• What resources are necessary for CPQ deployment and setting up relevant business processes?
• How soon can we expect increased sales revenue with CPQ-based sales flows?
• In what ways will CPQ implementation improve communication with clients and boost customer satisfaction?

Based on these questions, we can point out significant challenges for businesses that use Salesforce when considering CPQ implementation:

• Complex product configurations: Managing and configuring intricate product catalogs and options can be challenging, especially when dealing with a wide range of customizable features and pricing rules.

• Integration complexity: Integrating CPQ solutions with existing systems, such as CRM and ERP, requires careful planning and coordination to ensure seamless data flow and process synchronization.

• User adoption: Ensuring user adoption and buy-in from sales teams can be challenging, as they need to adapt to new processes and tools to utilize CPQ capabilities effectively.

• Data accuracy and maintenance: Maintaining accurate and up-to-date product and pricing data across multiple systems and channels can be a constant challenge, requiring robust data management practices.

• Scalability and Customization: As businesses grow and evolve, the CPQ solution needs to scale and adapt to changing requirements, including complex pricing structures, multiple currencies, and global operations.

The companies that provided us with the insights above are in the logistics, manufacturing, financial consulting, marketing, and retail industries. In these sectors, products, and bundles may involve intricate configurations and dependencies. This is where CPQ solutions can lend a helping hand.

So what are the benefits of Salesforce CPQ software solutions?

Benefits of CPQ Software in Salesforce

In a highly competitive environment, sales representatives deal with complex products and services, create quotes, and interact with customers.

Excel and other data sales tools can no longer provide deal velocity without errors and recalculations.

For instance, an old-school quoting process in a traditional sales flow would be as follows:

• Determine the best products and the required configurations.

• Refer to pricing documentation or static systems for the basic price.

• Track down eligible discounts and apply them manually.

• Wait for approval if a significant discount is requested. Mind that these processes are primarily manual, with time-consuming back-and-forth messaging subject to human error and communication hiccups.

• Create the final quote document that will be delivered to your customer. If there’s anything they are not content with, the whole loop restarts.

The key challenge has always been to improve the quoting process's automation, predictability, and efficiency for both sales representatives and clients.

At the very least, CPQ software implementation significantly reduces paperwork and documentation. Sales reps benefit from readily available price books, saving time by minimizing manual calculations and routine operations.

In comparing the benefits of solutions like Salesforce CPQ versus standard quoting processes, businesses find that CPQ automation offers guided selling features and dynamic pricing capabilities, providing a significant competitive edge.

Now, let's delve into the benefits of Salesforce CPQ software for sales teams in depth.

1. With CPQ, Everyone on Your Sales Team Knows Exactly What to Do

What impression do your customers get when they purchase from your company?

Regardless of how they engage with you, that initial experience already sets high expectations, and making no mistakes is crucial. Customers prefer not to deal with the details of your sales process or the complexity of your product catalog.

Your products and bundles may simultaneously involve intricate configurations and dependencies. Your team needs to act swiftly and accurately, ensuring customers understand why the price is what it is.

Therefore, it's essential to check if the solution you choose enables you to:

• Ensure successful quote configurations without errors, regardless of how complex the bundles' dependencies are

• Simplify the configuration process for sales reps

• Preconfigure available cross-selling and up-selling items

Your CPQ tool should feature an intuitive interface and provide coherent options for customers to interact with—a seamless process for making additions and changes, ideally done on the go in real time.

2. CPQ for Salesforce Enables Swift Approval and Payment Workflows

How many of your competitors' business proposals will your client read while waiting for yours?

The flawless travel of a quote or proposal through all participating departments for approval is crucial.

Considerations like sales margin, discounts, offered products and services, and location play a vital role in this process. A lengthy and bureaucratic internal approval process can be detrimental to the deal. How many potential customers abandon the process during this step? How many deals are slipping away due to insufficient internal processes? The approval process requires automation.

With a CPQ solution for Salesforce, you can:

• Establish quote and price approval workflows

• Create approval workflows based on configurable criteria such as margin, discount, or region

• Utilize client ratings to determine discounts

3. CPQ Ensures Price List and Promotions Data are Up-to-Date

How do sales teams—whether local or global—receive information about pricing changes?

Many sales teams still rely on outdated communication channels like spreadsheets, emails, or worse. In a flood of business communications, it's too easy for one person to alter a few digits or overlook an email.

Outdated systems for sharing information lead to unnecessary delays. And what about managing promotions? Every customer wants a deal—and it's in your best interest to provide one. But how much profit is lost by offering a larger deal than necessary to close the sale?

Consider the following CPQ features to avoid losing deals:

• Centralized pricing adjustments with seamless team notifications

• Price changes and discounts enabled without IT intervention

• Historical pricing data view

• Offers tailored to individuals or segments based on preset rules

4. СPQ Software Drives Order Fulfillment

When the deal is closed, the next step is to ensure your customers receive what was promised in a quote and at the right time.

The best way to deliver a successful order is to connect all the departments in one system. Salespeople are unaware of what is in inventory or when delivery can be achieved. All changes in an order, such as adding or removing products, shouldn't confuse your system. Fulfillment should be efficient, seamless, and unified.

Consider leveraging these CPQ features:

• Guided selling: assisting sales reps in selecting the right products and configurations

• Renewals and upsells: identifying opportunities for renewals and upsells during quoting

• Contract management: managing contracts and agreements associated with quotes and orders

• Reporting and analytics: tracking key metrics like conversion rates, win/loss analysis, and sales performance

5. CPQ Customizes the Proposal Process with Enhanced UI

Empower your sales team to focus on what they do best—selling. Consider how much of their time is dedicated to creating proposals. While one-size-fits-all templates may not be ideal, crafting a good one can consume a significant portion of their time.

A CPQ app for Salesforce will allow you to:

• Generate template-based quotes and proposals, easily customizable for specific needs

• Help team members and customers interact with quotes based on preset rules

• Enjoy a drag-and-drop editor for lightning-speed modifications

The prioritization of business operation automation is evident in today's corporate landscape, with ongoing advancements since the inception of CRM and ERP systems, including the widely used Salesforce platform.

Is Implementing CPQ for Salesforce a Reasonable Investment?

You, as a business owner, might doubt the need to adopt CPQ for Salesforce software for various reasons, such as perceived lack of need, time constraints, or cost considerations.

Traditionally, CPQ solutions have been associated with high expenses and significant training requirements.

However, there are now powerful yet affordable CPQ solutions for Salesforce available.

Business owners aim for a return on investment, and with CPQ, vendors have diverse pricing models and subscription plans. The most effective method to assess the worth of a CPQ solution is the "try before you buy" approach.

For example:

Sculptor CPQ for Salesforce, available on AppExchange, provides such an opportunity. You can install a free version of CPQ in your production with no expiration date to try out features like pricing rules and interactive web quotes.

Most CPQ solutions necessitate 3-6 months for implementation and the involvement of a certified CPQ specialist or a third-party Salesforce consulting firm. At the same time, CPQ software implementation reduces the use of paperwork and documentation. Sales reps benefit from having price books available at hand and save time by reducing manual calculations and routine operations.

Summary

Some companies perform well without CPQ. In some cases, their business may not offer a wide range of products or services, or there may not be an adequate number of sales reps effectively managing orders using standard tools like Excel for calculations and generating quotes.

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