Six ways to increase sales - CPQ and Ecommerce Sales ... Collateral... · Configure, price, quote (CPQ) software is today’s biggest buzzword and core business tool in B2B. Developed

SIX WAYS TO INCREASE SALESWITHOUT HIRING MORE SELLERSQuick Turnaround Quoting for Today’s Customer

https://www.verenia.com/

In today’s mobile age, customers are expecting an Amazon-like customer experience. Trends over the last few years show customer experience preferences that mirror the service Amazon provides. According to two Forrester Research surveys done in the first quarters of 2015 and 2017, 59% of consumers preferred not to interact with a sales rep in 2015, which went up to 60% in 2017. The percentage of consumers who preferred to gather information online on their own was at 53% in 2015, jumping to 68% in 2017. Consumers have become savvier about making purchase decisions and will research before they reach out to a company.

This phenomenon is happening across every industry: manufacturing, wholesale, retail, marketing, software, and services, especially B2B companies in particular. Customers begin their journeys online, and B2B businesses need

to meet customers there. These days, sellers are laser-focused on increasing engagement and making themselves more accessible, ensuring they are delivering their brand, message, and the value of their products and services through digital engagement. Businesses must have a technology ecosystem to find customers across digital and non-digital. The need for transformation is clear, and the technology they use is paramount.

Buyers want constant access to your business’ information. For the customer, it is about convenience; for the business owner, if they are not in a friendly position from the other end of digital engagement, they are missing the potential for new customers, new opportunities for sales teams, and more interaction from customers on product offerings they might not know to exist. B2B businesses must adapt and be more like B2C businesses, connecting with customers through constant engagement.

BUYER EXPECTATIONS ARECHANGING

Remove Costs Drive Incremental Value

Improve Customer Engagement

Enable Sellers to Earn Higher Margins

Increase Customer Satisfaction and

Retention Sources: Forrester Research /Internet Retailer Q1 2015 US B2B Buyer Channel Preferences Online Survey; Forrester Research/Internet Retailer

Q1 2017 Global B2B Buy-Side Online Survey

When companies make the critical transformation into digital, they will be able to:

Buyer ExpectationsAre Changing

CPQ Digital Transformation

How to Find Sales Killing Processes at Your Company

Six Ways to Sell More Without Adding to Your Headcount

SoundOff Signal: A Success Story

Conclusion

CPQ DIGITALTRANSFORMATIONConfigure, price, quote (CPQ) software is today’s biggest buzzword and core business tool in B2B. Developed in manufacturing, CPQ technology has evolved into a more robust sales solution and benefits multiple industries, such as wholesale, retail, marketing, software, services, healthcare, financial, telecom, and more. CPQ enables users throughout entire organizations, including sales, customer service, marketing, indirect sales channels, dealers and distributors, operations, finance, and inventory management.

According to a report from the Aberdeen Research Group, here’s what CPQ can do for your business:

CPQ software can provide a five times greater year-over-year revenue

growth rate.

CPQ-enabled companies enjoy a savings of $1 million in the costs of replacing sales reps over ten

years.

CPQ users see a fourfold net profit increase over five years.

CPQ solutions are over twice as effective in minimizing the complexity of quoting and proposal processes by reducing the number of people and functions

involved.

Source: “Powering a Profitable Sales Organization: How CPQ Cuts Costs,” Aberdeen Research Group






Conclusion

HOW TO FIND SALES KILLINGPROCESSES AT YOURCOMPANYCPQ-enabled companies have benefitted by removing any inefficiencies, identifying disparaged processes and causes of delays and missed opportunities. The following challenges are common for many businesses who are looking for ways to drive profits and improvement, increase revenue, and digitally transform their company.

SpreadsheetsMany companies are still using spreadsheets to keep track of information, such as pricing, inventory, item numbers (SKUs), and vendors. These spreadsheets may have worked when the business was small; however, as the business grows, having a single source of data that is accessible to everyone in the company can save a lot of time and money. A CPQ can eliminate spreadsheets in favor of creating a unified system that the entire company can use for a single source of information.

Delayed quotingIf it takes days to process quotes for complex products and services, it can lead to missed opportunities. Today’s buyers expect fast service.

Quoting errorsSending out quotes with errors should never happen. Nothing is more embarrassing than sending one erroneous quote, followed by a second, and potentially a third, which can cause confusion and jeopardize the sale.






Conclusion

Rep training and retrainingTraining and retraining reps is a costly process. The more time sales reps spend training, the less time they spend selling. CPQ solutions reduce training time for reps to one day.

Cross-selling and upsellingCompanies often overlook upselling and cross-selling practices for increasing revenue and customer satisfaction. When your sales team has access to automatic suggestive selling and intelligence through a CPQ, your reps can increase the value in proposals and deal sizes that would otherwise not be achieved, especially if they have to dig through spreadsheets to find a compatible item for an upsell opportunity.

Slow to market productsThings happen fast in today’s business. If you can eliminate that lag time with CPQ to roll out new products and services more efficiently, the better off your business will be.

Eliminating all this waste in your company means your team can spend more time engaged in innovating, creating new opportunities, and growing overall sales revenue for your company.






Conclusion

SIX WAYS TO SELL MORE WITHOUT ADDING TO YOURHEADCOUNTThere are six ways CPQ can help your business sell more without needing to hire more salespeople:

Sales training reduction

With a CPQ, sales reps can start selling on their first day. CPQ provides salespeople with error-proof guided selling to make sales more intuitive. CPQ software also handles dependencies and rules that follow your company’s business logic, so reps will not have to memorize SKUs so they can put in an order. Having this intelligence at their fingertips will boost seller confidence because they can answer questions immediately instead of having to call on another team expert and delay a customer sale.

Error reduction in quotes and orders

CPQ allows salespeople to provide error-free quotes and orders by giving them access to real-time product pricing, rules, and inventory updates, eliminating the need to double and triple check orders for accuracy.

Higher lead conversion rates

The Gartner Modern CPQ report says the first quote received by a customer has the highest probability of winning the deal. Quotes for complex products, services, and bundles can often cause delays. CPQ simplifies the quoting process so your business can be the first in line.

Shorter sales cycles

CPQ ultimately makes it easier for customers to do business with you. Instead of lengthy sales cycles that include digging through spreadsheets and going through six or seven stages of approval, the CPQ workflow has automated approval processes that keep price margins in check by reducing manual validations.






Conclusion

SIX WAYS TO SELL MORE WITHOUT ADDING TO YOURHEADCOUNT

Increased proposal volume

CPQ automation allows sellers to reply to customers faster, resulting in more contracts, proposals, quotes, and request for proposal (RFP) responses. It increases opportunity for sellers to have more targeted conversations to that your reps can present the right product at the right time.

Seamlessly upsell and cross-sell

With automation, systematic upselling and cross-selling is provided to the seller, achieving optimal product and pricing opportunities in real time and creating the Amazon-like experience buyers are expecting. Businesses that sell more services to a client are less likely to be displaced by a competitor. When an upsell or cross-sell is offered, 60% of customers who are committed to a sale will make a last-minute purchase.

Larger Deal Size

105%

Higher Lead Conversion Rates

19%

Reduction in Errors

Average Proposal Volume

49%

93%

Reduction in Sales Training

Shorter Sales Cycles

27%

99%

Source: “Powering a Profitable Sales Organization: How CPQ Cuts Costs,” Aberdeen Research Group

CPQ Facts

CPQ-enabled companies achieve:






Conclusion

SOUNDOFF SIGNAL: A SUCCESSSTORYSoundOff Signal is a lighting manufacturer leading industry innovation for emergency vehicles. They build control systems, sirens, and anything else that flashes on ambulances and police transport. SoundOff offers standard products that have single colors and the option of configuring other colors and features. The company needed a CPQ solution to fill customer orders more accurately and efficiently and make their service faster and easier.

Before becoming a Verenia CPQ customer, SoundOff had a configurator, but it was very utilitarian. It was a Java-based, internal phase configurator that could do little more than move orders to the shop floor and make sure the bill of materials (BOMs), costs, and pricing were correct. For their purposes, SoundOff needed a configurator that was outward-facing, visually pleasing, and intuitive that would help their reps sell more and assist customer service in entering orders more quickly.

Under the old system, configurations were either handwritten or completed through a PDF document with drop-down fields so customers could make their choices. However, the PDF was not a controlled document. Customers were able to enter configurations that were not buildable. It was imperative for SoundOff to implement a rule-based product configurator that could easily integrate with their ERP system, generate job orders, and build the product all the way to the shipping department.

After meeting with Verenia, it took one year to develop

Before Verenia CPQ:

Quotes and orders were uncontrolled and consisted of handwritten or PDF configurations;

Customer service reps were responsible for entering orders;

Encountered a high rate of errors and lengthy order entry process.

Problems they sought to solve:

Unsupported ERP system configurator;

Configurator was not omnichannel; did not allow external users.






Conclusion

SOUNDOFF SIGNAL: A SUCCESSSTORYand release it to the sales department. Once SoundOff began showing the system to their customers, they immediately got on board to get in on the platform. After another five to six months, they could open up Verenia CPQ to their customers.

SoundOff’s next plans with Verenia CPQ are to create a B2C ecommerce experience with a full product catalog for their dealer network. They will then be able to repurpose some of the data entry reps as inside sales, answering questions and assisting customers. By reassigning existing staff instead of hiring new personnel, SoundOff can add greater functionality and knowledge to the company.

SoundOff also plans to implement a consultative selling approach. They want reps to sit with the end user and show visual representations of the product and its placement. The reps can then use Verenia CPQ to print a quote, and the customer can sign it off. The consultative approach with Verenia CPQ will streamline the selling process by avoiding potential errors in the configuration.

For the past nine years, SoundOff has grown steadily by 15% every year and looks forward to continuing double-digit growth without adding to their headcount.

After Verenia CPQ:

Implemented for internal sales and customer service, CPQ replaced PDF configurations for order entry;

Launched to external customers;

Next phase includes full product catalog.

Impact:

Achieved double-digit sales growth with no additional headcount;

Next phase will drive a reduction in data entry time.






Conclusion

Visit verenia.com to schedule a demo and learn more about what Verenia CPQ can do for your business.

Businesses today are undergoing a wave of digital transformation. B2B companies are migrating to a B2C approach with CPQ, achieving stronger sales revenue by investing in their growth and building relationships with customers, sales channels, and the sales teams they currently have without hiring more.

CPQ allows for seamless interactions between buyers and sellers with instant access to real-time, accurate information. Customer buying habits are changing, with online shopping giving today’s consumer the ability to research independently before ever contacting sales. If your company’s website does not make your information readily available to the customer, the customer will go to a competitor.

CPQ offers the opportunity for your company to create 100% accurate quotes, increased proposal volume, shorter sales cycles, and increased deal size. Whether your business is in manufacturing, wholesale, retail, marketing, software, or services industry, CPQ can transform your sales team and your entire business.

CONCLUSION

Verenia on Facebook Verenia on Twitter Verenia on Linkedin






Conclusion

https://www.facebook.com/vereniacpq

https://twitter.com/VereniaCPQ

https://www.linkedin.com/company/verenia/

https://www.verenia.com/

Documents

Six ways to increase sales - CPQ and Ecommerce Sales ... Collateral... · Configure, price, quote (CPQ) software is today’s biggest buzzword and core business tool in B2B. Developed