Selling products and services that are customizable or upgradable has its pros and cons. On the plus side, more choices for customers means more upsell opportunities and therefore more profit and revenue. The downside, however, is an added layer of complexity that comes with having to provide accurate price quotes.
Challenge #1: Quotation inaccuracies
If your business sells a complex portfolio of products to meet client demands, your sales department will be pressured not only for increasing sales numbers but also for keeping up with administrative tasks such as multiple quote creation. This usually results in margin-cutting practices, unintentional price adjustments, and quotation errors. This can cost companies lost opportunities because when a deal has already been offered and there’s a sudden change in price, chances are high that the customer will back out. Errors can also remain undetected until after the deal is done, and the contract is signed and paid, which can result in significant losses for the company.
Challenge #2: Slow quote times and inconsistent pricing
According to an F1F9 study, 88-percent of spreadsheets contain errors or data inconsistencies. So if you’re relying on a manual quoting process, there is a very high likelihood that you are not only suffering from slow quote generation times, but also encountering a lot of data inconsistencies. While larger companies might have a team devoted to double-checking their spreadsheet data, small and medium businesses don’t have this luxury — and even then, this is a highly inefficient use of time and resources that could be spent on more value-adding tasks.
Challenge #3: Getting through a series of “approvers”
Only rarely do sales teams deal directly with the company CEO; for bigger organizations, there’s a board of decision makers or influencers that can cause delays. You should be familiar with these decision makers and their contacts within the organization, so you can prepare a quotation that will proactively address their concerns.
Addressing the Challenges
PositiveEdge’s Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Tool helps manufacturers define the price of their products across a wide range of continuously changing variables and factors. It allows companies to simplify pricing complexities so they can focus on serving their customers, creating the best bundles and offerings, and selling products.
By integrating our CPQ Tool with existing CRM systems, PositiveEdge can help manufacturers offer the best price for customers. It enables enterprises to easily configure their products and pricing so they can give them the best product and customer experience.
Get in touch with us to learn how we can take customer experience to the next level.