While many of our readers are familiar with CPQ - Configure, Price, Quote, and yes while it isn't groundbreakingly new it is still formerly niche. But, it’s growth has particularly accelerated over the past years and especially during last year. 

From being a “nice-to-have” to becoming the hottest area of the Salesforce CRM, it is becoming the catalyst for driving sales growth. 

This is because of the increased demand from customers expecting a faster and more context-driven buying experience. A CPQ solution improves deal velocity, accelerates the proposal management process, and supercharges sales teams.

So, let’s start at the very beginning. 

What exactly is CPQ?

CPQ - Configure, Price and Quote is software that supports both the customers and sales team members during the product buying and selling process. 

It helps both parties to get an accurate pricing quote regardless of the complex nature of the product configurations, pricing tiers, multiple service offerings, customizations, or discounts. 

For example x-rays which are a very complex product have enabled medical organisations to offer perfect and consistent prices across a constantly evolving spectrum of variables. 

CPQ is like a company’s best-performing salesperson on steroids. 

During the lockdown last year this accelerated the adoption of CPQ for many other organisations as increased demand in mobile-first application design, a remote workforce, and impatient buyers has meant that companies need to transit to the CPQ environment. 

And the ones that recently have, have seen real positive results in both the deal size and the quotation accuracy.

Salesforce CPQ Basics

CPQ is almost synonymous with Salesforce and for a good reason too.

Salesforce CPQ is feature-packed and hosted within the Sales Cloud. There are no complex integrations, no upgrades, and no other strings attached to transit. 

Many businesses have seen that the CPQ solution takes care of all the backend manual “heavy lifting” that goes into generating an individualized price quote. It instead identifies and pulls out product variants and price tiers based on the buyers custom specifications.

CPQ in detail 

Configure – This is the first step you take when you have identified an interested buyer, they typically will sit at the beginning stages of the sales funnel. At this point the member from your sales team would fill out the essential details about the customer, the customisations (if required) to the product/service, and the interest point of the sale i.e. when does the customer intend to make the purchase. 

Price – Once the specifics have been discussed around the product/service, the sales team member can apply any other discretionary discounts for your customers, including pricing details - dynamic pricing or generating accurate quotes in brand-aligned PDF documents has never been easier. Sales executives have the capability to calculate unit costs, block costs, subscription pricing, and any other discounts in a matter of a couple of clicks.

Quote – Quotes used to take a couple of days to generate, but with CPQ’s quotation tiers they can be generated the day of in a matter of minutes. The system is perfectly customized to the companies tailored tier pricing modules that the company would have previously set up from the start when transiting to the software. 

This has in essence revolutionized the old sales funnel experience. With this CPQ solution, B2B buyers can have their demands met with this better buying experience. 

Here’s a snapshot look at the old way the sales funnel worked:

Step 1: A potential buyer is interested in your product/services.

Step 2: Multiple interactions take place in order to negotiate and tally up accurately a quote and order the product to meet the buyers customisations.

Step 3: The overall sales process in steps 1 and 2 typically will take months to close the deals because the sales cycle halts at several places.

And do you know where the problem lies? In steps two, and three. 

And that’s precisely why every business needs a CPQ solution.

Innovating the B2B buying experience:

B2B buyers are demanding quicker and more customised buying experiences. 

In order to thrive within an existing competitive environment and continue to secure business, it is essential for organizations today to meet the customers demand and deliver exceptional customer experiences. 

Companies should harness the power of Salesforce CPQ through quicker quoting processes and dynamic pricing. Gone are the days where sales team members and the finance teams had to take days to configure a quote and thus make fewer mistakes during this process. 

Other bonuses include the ability to quickly extend your CPQ implementation with B2B Salesforce Commerce capability which allows customers to reorder quickly if need be. 

The time is NOW to implement CPQ 

We hope that this has helped you visualise the importance of implementing CPQ for your business and we have shown how the platform can deliver real tangible value. 

At Savant Technology Recruitment, we helped our clients to address their CPQ industry needs. We have Salesforce CPQ candidates at a permanent or contract rate basis to help your business pivot to this new business model. Our candidates have worked on complex and impressive multi-million pound CPQ projects over the years so we understand the importance of recruiting the right people. 

To learn more about us and how we can help you to recruit candidates who can help your team to implement and customize Salesforce CPQ to drive new value contact us with your enquiry via technology@savantrecruitment.com