Interactive Sales Quotes: Streamline Proposal Creation
Old-school Sales Quoting Process and its Challenges
In the old-school quoting process, sales representatives would manually gather product information, pricing details, and discounts, often relying on static templates or spreadsheets. This manual approach was prone to errors, resulting in inaccurate proposals and wasted time on revisions. Additionally, collaboration between teams and customers was limited, leading to delayed response times and a disjointed customer experience.
Typical steps that a sales team would follow in a traditional sales process include:
- Determine which products are the best, and what configurations are necessary
- For the base price, consult pricing documentation or static systems
- Find eligible discounts and apply them manually
- Wait for approval from the management to provide a discount
- Create the quote document to be sent to your customer
- Wait for the client’s feedback and make time-consuming corrections and recalculations
- Send the final sales proposal to the customer for approval
Traditional sales quotation process
Company growth typically depends on closing more deals and closing them faster while providing an excellent customer experience during the sales process. Old sales tools like Excel, Word, and PowerPoint were no longer effective in providing business growth and scalability in a highly competitive business environment.
Sales reps wanted to be sure that they offered the right products and the right deals for their customers. The main issue was how to make the quoting process more automated, predictable, and effective, both for sales reps and customers. Guided selling, automated pricing rules, and interactive quotes were the most expected selling software features among sales teams.
Crafting Accurate Sales Proposals Today
Things changed drastically in the 1980s with the emergence of the first software prototypes of configure price quote software applications, which became even more popular in the 2000s.
In the fast-paced world of sales, accuracy and efficiency are paramount. The process of generating sales proposals has undergone a remarkable transformation, transitioning from traditional quoting methods to the modern era of digital sales proposal generation. With the advent of advanced Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solutions, such as Salesforce CPQ, in 2010, sales managers and teams got access to powerful tools that revolutionized the way proposals were created, increasing accuracy, speed, and customer satisfaction.
To meet current business challenges head-on, more and more organizations today are turning to advanced tools like Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), Sculptor CPQ, etc., that streamline the quoting process and enable sales reps to create accurate, detailed proposals efficiently.
According to Accenture research, in 2016, 83% of companies were using CPQ solutions. Today, the market continues to grow, with Globenewswire reporting that it reached US$2.2 Billion in 2022, and is expected to reach a revised size of US$7.3 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 16.4%.
Don't forget to check out: Salesforce CPQ: Unleashing the Power of Configure, Price, QuoteCreating accurate sales proposals is crucial for building trust and credibility with potential customers. Modern CPQ solutions empower sales teams by providing a comprehensive platform to generate precise quotes tailored to individual customer needs.
Product and Bundle Configuration
CPQ apps allow sales reps to configure products and services based on customer requirements accurately. The system ensures that only compatible options are presented, eliminating the possibility of errors or inconsistencies. Sculptor CPQ for Salesforce makes this process even more intuitive and exciting by providing drag-and-drop capabilities to add products to a quote or configure a complex product bundle tailored to the client’s business needs.
Interactive Bundle Builder
Pricing and Discount Management
With this automation feature in CPQ solutions, sales managers can define and configure pricing rules, discounts, and promotions easily. These parameters are automatically applied to the quote, ensuring consistency across all proposals and reducing the risk of pricing errors.
CPQ Pricing Management
Interactive Quote Builder
The interactive quote builder allows sales reps to create visually appealing and engaging proposals. They can easily navigate, filter and add products and bundles, add media and some complimentary files, and even customize the quote's layout to match their corporate branding to create a compelling sales pitch.
Interactive Quote Builder
Electronic Signature Integration
Almost all CPQ solutions integrate with 3rd party electronic signature platforms or have their own embedded e-sign functionality, enabling customers to sign quotes digitally. This eliminates the need for physical paperwork, accelerates the approval process, and expedites deal closure.
Dynamic Proposal Generation and Real-Time collaboration
Sculptor CPQ facilitates seamless collaboration between sales reps and other stakeholders involved in the quoting process. This ensures that all parties have access to the most up-to-date information and can provide timely feedback or make necessary adjustments. This functionality allows sales reps to generate interactive web PDF quotes that adapt in real-time based on customer interactions. Sales reps and customers can easily modify pricing, add or remove products, and instantly update the quote, enhancing responsiveness and agility in the sales process.
Digital sales quotes generated with CPQ tools offer numerous advantages over traditional paper-based proposals.
Interactive sales quotes and real-time collaboration with Sculptor CPQ
Now let’s look deeper into how Sculptor CPQ for Salesforce allows customers to interact with sales reps directly on the sales quote, thereby expediting the sales process and enhancing the customer experience.
When a sales rep finishes a quote creation, he can choose the option to send the quote to a customer as an interactive web quote link. This link can be viewed by a customer in any browser, including mobile ones.
The interactive web quote screen has three elements:
Interactive sales quote interface
The products are located in the left sidebar, and a customer can view and add some products to his quote by double-clicking on any product.
The actual quote content is in the middle, and this space is dynamic, which means that the quote grand total is automatically recalculated and updated when operations with the product quantity editing take place, or a sales rep provides an additional discount for a client.
An embedded chatter to facilitate online communications between sales reps and clients is located in the right sidebar. It allows users to ask and answer urgent questions about deal details and accept the actual sales proposal promptly with the help of the Accept and Decline Buttons.
The TOP 7 benefits of the interactive web quoting feature in Sculptor CPQ include
1. Engagement and Interactivity
Interactive web PDF quotes offer active engagement, allowing customers to customize their quotes by adding or removing products and modifying quantities. This interactivity creates a more engaging experience compared to passive static PDF sales quotes.
2. Real-Time Updates
Interactive web PDF quotes provide real-time updates, allowing customers to see pricing adjustments and discounts instantly without manual recalculations. In contrast, static PDF sales quotes are static snapshots that require manual revisions for any changes.
3. Collaborative Communication
Interactive web PDF quotes facilitate real-time communication between sales reps and customers through embedded chat or comment sections. This collaboration feature allows for immediate conversations, clarifications, and negotiations, enhancing the customer experience.
4. Self-service Customization
Interactive web PDF quotes allow customers to personalize their quotes by selecting products, quantities, and options that meet their specific needs. Static PDF sales quotes lack this customization feature and are typically standardized across all customers.
5. Ease of Acceptance
Interactive web PDF quotes simplify the acceptance process with one-click electronic acceptance. Customers can accept the quote directly within the interface, eliminating the need for physical paperwork and expediting deal closure. Static PDF sales quotes require additional steps, such as printing, signing, scanning, and returning the document.
6. Interactive Quote Statistics
This is an extremely helpful feature. A sales rep can see a customer’s interactions with the quote in Salesforce: time of the visit, duration of visit, "on it now’’ status, browser/OS version. Static PDF sales quotes don't provide any statistics about a customer's interaction with your sales proposal.
7. Multi-quote Proposal
In Sculptor CPQ, sales reps can enclose several child quotes in one parent quote, which allows customers to compare and accept the best proposal for their business needs. This functionality provides transparency and an individual customer approach, and helps to avoid quote cycling flows and time-consuming corrections and amendments.
Parent and child quote combination
Check out another amazing blog by Sculptor here: CPQ Deployment Process: Top Challenges and Best Practices | Salesforce
Conclusion
In the modern business landscape, accurate and interactive sales proposals, which provide easier ways for sales reps and customers to collaborate on a Salesforce quote and accept a sales proposal in real-time, and efficient quoting processes are the keys to the company's growth and efficiency.
Sculptor CPQ offers sales managers a powerful toolset to streamline proposal creation, enhance customer interaction, and accelerate the sales process. By leveraging the key features of digital sales quotes and facilitating real-time collaboration with customers, organizations can drive revenue growth, improve customer satisfaction, and gain a competitive edge in their respective markets.
Originally published at Sculptor.Cloud.com
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