If your sales team is expanding, that’s great! However, significant growth comes with increased complexity.
If your CPQ process is not optimized and you are simply trying to keep up, then pain points will become a barrier sooner or later.
By properly integrating configure, price, quote (CPQ) software into your sales cycle, you will drastically reduce the time it takes to fulfill customer requests and avoid costly quoting errors.
That’s what we are going to learn today. We’ll cover the challenges in today’s business that sales reps face, how CPQ software can help overcome them, and discuss real examples of successful implementations.
Why your company needs CPQ solutions
If you think that configure price quote software is yet another additional cost for the company and that the CRM you use is sufficient to control your entire sales cycle, you are almost certainly missing out on realizing your full potential.
CRM systems are powerful tools to manage your sales cycles and customer relationships, but they are not a silver bullet.
Your sales teams will still likely face sales challenges despite using a CRM, such as lengthy sales cycles, lower win rates, missed quotas, less time spent with customers, and lower margins.
What are the biggest challenges in sales?
Let’s take a closer look at these sales obstacles and discover how a combination of CRM and CPQ software can help you overcome them.
1. Your sales cycle is too long
Picture this: a potential customer asks for a quote, but your sales team spends hours manually configuring and pricing a product, only to make a mistake in the quoting process that wastes even more time.
In the end, your sales reps and sales managers have spent considerable time troubleshooting, and that time is not spent selling.
This situation isn’t exclusive to sales teams. In fact, sales reps spend only 36% of their time on pure sales, the rest being spent on technical and administrative tasks that could be handled by automation for higher sales performance. This frees up sales leaders to focus on customers and better sales strategies.
How CPQ helps
Using CPQ means less admin, fewer errors, and a quicker sales process.
CPQ software like PandaDoc CPQ or Salesforce CPQ offers options to automate configuration, pricing, and quoting on a single platform.
Your sales teams can now upload spreadsheets to the CPQ software instead of manually entering data. This makes it a lot easier for sales reps to give accurate quotes and close deals quicker.
Improve the efficiency of your sales cycle
Generate accurate quotes, configure products or services, set pricing rules, and create professional-looking proposals.
2. Product configuration is complex
Another challenge facing sales teams is the increasing complexity of customers’ needs.
Today’s customers expect a wide variety of choices to meet very specific needs.
As a result, your company is likely to offer many different combinations of the same product, whether it’s a variation in the color or size of a model.
The problem here is to provide consistency with your offers to customers to properly satisfy their requests.
How CPQ helps
With CPQ software, you can generate customized quotes for all your customers.
Lots of CPQ platforms have ready-made bundles, but salespeople can tweak them.
CPQ software allows you to create catalogs and line items, giving sales teams a clear overview of product availability. When these tasks are handled, you’re able to improve sales training and have more accurate forecasting.
This lets sales teams easily browse products, build custom offers, and stay on top of configurations. This helps the sales pipeline become more effective.
3. Lack of profitability
Another major challenge for sales representatives is meeting profitability targets.
This seems obvious when it comes to sales departments, but meeting quotas is sometimes difficult. According to studies, only six out of ten sales representatives reach their sales targets.
Flip it around, and 40% of salespeople aren’t hitting their targets.
There are a few reasons for this: separate sales channels, outdated pricing, and too many discounts. The main sales challenge is boosting profits without upsetting customers or missing targets.
How CPQ helps
CPQ software such as Salesforce has advanced price calculation options based on predefined parameters such as time of use, number of users, functionality, or quality.
This lets us give customers clear estimates while still making a profit.
Other CPQ systems like PandaDoc offer advanced product catalog options.
Sellers can choose different pricing structures (fixed, recurring, or volume-based) and easily create quotes for customers.
4. Multiple sources across the company
Seeing customer data instantly helps you sell more; it’s key for your business.
But you use tons of cloud apps besides your CRM and ERP, right? That scatters customer data everywhere.
The problem is that the software doesn’t work together. It’s a time suck for your sales teams, jumping between all those different places.
How CPQ helps
A good CPQ system must be compatible with other applications in your company, like your CRM.
It’ll save your sales team time on quotes by letting them access customer data in the software.
If, for example, you use Salesforce as a CRM, you can integrate it with PandaDoc CPQ to generate your quotes.
The big difference with Salesforce CPQ is its content library of customizable, pre-built quote templates.
With PandaDoc CPQ, you control the entire sales process, from the creation of the quote to the signing of the offer by the customer.
5. Slow approval process
Another issue that arises in the sales process is the lack of collaboration between teams.
This problem is most visible when it comes to approving quotes. Indeed, salespeople sometimes have to wait a long time for the person evaluating to validate the quotes before sending them to the customers.
The risk is that your sales teams take the initiative and validate the quotes at the risk of losing maximum profit margin.
See also
4 CPQ best practices to optimize your sales cycle
How CPQ helps
Most companies use email to validate quotes.
Because teams can’t see quote statuses or collaborator comments, this workflow is far from optimized.
CPQ systems offer real-time visibility into quote progress across all teams involved.
Most CPQ software has desktop and mobile alerts that help sales run smoothly.
Expanding on the content to address additional challenges and common mistakes in sales can provide a more comprehensive resource for sales professionals.
Here’s an enhanced overview:
Biggest challenges in sales
1. Reaching potential customers: is a real challenge – the market’s flooded, and buyers are unpredictable.
2. Lead qualification: Determining which leads are worth pursuing can be challenging, leading to wasted resources on prospects unlikely to convert.
3. Building trust: Establishing a trustworthy relationship with prospects is crucial, yet often difficult, especially in competitive markets.
4. Handling objections: Effectively addressing concerns and objections from potential customers requires skill and preparation.
5. Closing deals: Many sales professionals struggle with sealing the deal, often due to timing issues or ineffective closing strategies.
6. Time management: Juggling various tasks, from prospecting to follow-ups, can lead to inefficiencies without proper time management.
7. Adapting: Keeping up with new sales technologies and integrating them into existing processes can be overwhelming.
8. Failing to understand customer needs: Can mean losing sales.
9. Competitive pressure: Standing out among competitors, especially in saturated markets, is a constant challenge.
10. Maintaining motivation: The repetitive nature of sales and frequent rejections can impact a salesperson’s drive and enthusiasm.
Four common sales mistakes
1. Neglecting to research potential clients: Can result in lost opportunities and create a negative first impression.
2. Broken promises: damage trust and disappoint customers.
3. Ineffective listening: Dominating the conversation without understanding the client’s needs can ruin relationship building.
4. Neglecting follow-ups: Failing to follow up with prospects can lead to lost deals.
How can sales reps handle long sales cylces?
Sales representatives can manage extended sales processes by:
- Setting milestones helps break the cycle into manageable steps, allowing you to track progress and stay motivated.
- Nurture leads by consistently interacting and reminding them about what you offer.
- Show the product’s value with insights, case studies, and info.
- Manage expectations: Be upfront about timelines and how things work.
By overcoming common obstacles and addressing additional challenges, sales professionals can refine their approach and achieve better results.
Conclusion
To sum up, a CPQ platform is a powerful solution for sales teams facing common challenges such as lengthy sales cycles, inaccurate quotes, and complex product configurations.
With a CPQ system, sales teams can concentrate on high-value activities and boost customer satisfaction because the system handles the sales process, ensuring accurate pricing and quotes.
The synergy between your CPQ and enterprise CRM systems will elevate your service and, consequently, customer experience.
Besides offering robust CPQ software, PandaDoc allows you to manage all your business documents (contract, proposal, quote, etc.) on a single platform.
PandaDoc is also compatible with most CRMs, such as Salesforce. Contact our representative and start your trial period.h most CRMs, such as Salesforce. Contact our representative and start your trial period.
Disclaimer
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