A growing business is generally a good problem. While most business executives would agree that company growth and an increased volume of customers are personally satisfying, these leaders also have to deal with a variety of issues to ensure that growth is healthy and sustainable. Using configure, price and quote (CPQ) software is a way to help your business keep up with its growth.
Keep the sales cycle moving fast
If your business is growing, that likely means you’re taking on new customers — sometimes quickly. In order to add customers, your company must increase the volume of leads — as not all leads result in paying customers — meaning your sales staff will have more calls to get through.
CPQ software can help automate key processes in the sales cycle to make sure that sellers don’t waste time on certain calls. Manual processes may work for smaller businesses, but as the volume of leads scales, the amount of time wasted on bad leads potentially can scale — until it perhaps reaches an unacceptable and burdensome level.
Hire employees and get them up to speed quickly
One sign of a growing business is the need to bring in new people. However, the more people you hire, the more time your organization must dedicate to training and instilling the company culture. Furthermore, executives/managers who may have taken an intimate role in training sellers when the company was smaller will now find that one-on-one attention is impractical. Instead, company leaders need to find a new way to make sure hires get up to speed quickly.
CPQ software can help with this as well. By guiding new sellers through the process of configuration and pricing, CPQ helps minimize the time it takes to get new sellers to the point where they can be self-sufficient, contributing members of the team.
Cut down on human error
Errors in the sales process waste time, often requiring hours to correct. In addition, they can frequently result in decreased customer satisfaction — and even lost deals. As your business grows, the combination of inexperienced sellers, more variables and the sheer volume of deals being negotiated likely will result in more errors in the sales process.
Here is where CPQ software can come in handy again. By automating processes and guiding sellers through the sales cycle using predetermined values, CPQ software is designed to limit mistakes by/get better results from your sales team.
Make smarter buying and selling decisions
Providing low prices and good customer service are great ways to grow a business in its infancy, but that sometimes can take you only so far. Eventually, your business may reach a point where all of its competitors are likely doing these things, meaning you’ll have to do more — or something different — to gain an edge.
CPQ software can help you understand your customers better. By keeping track of sales history and integrating this data with other important business tools such as CRM, CPQ should allow you make predictive decisions about future supply and demand. That should lead to smarter purchasing decisions, while keeping future prices in mind as well. As a result, you’ll be able to make the most of your current capital and ensure that deals return the best profit margin possible.
Automate compliance with corporate policies
As your business grows, it’s logical to believe you’ll have to create new and stricter corporate policies. When your business has only a few employees, it may be acceptable to expect them to do right of their own accord. However, with more employees comes more need for regulation. CPQ software can help you implement these new policies and make sure that they are being followed.
For all these reasons and more, CPQ software can help support your company’s growth initiatives.
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