Configure, price, quote, also known as CPQ software, is a sales tool for companies to quickly and accurately generate quotes for orders. It helps companies automate the lifecycle of the quoting and proposal process, starting with the moment a customer supplies their needs in a company’s offering and ending with sending a detailed quote to the customer or prospect.
Although it has been available for decades, innovation in CPQ software is seen as the newest wave in sales optimization tools. This is because sales departments can use it to accelerate the sales process while improving quote accuracy and customer relations. These software products allow companies to determine a customer’s needs and provide them with custom quotes that best fit those specific needs.
Products are typically built on an existing CRM software product or designed to integrate with one (or more) CRM tools.
CPQ applications often work in tandem with CRM platforms, ERP programs, and other business technology, which helps ensure integrated data as well as accuracy. Quotes produced with CPQ software are automated according to a preprogrammed set of rules, ensuring error-free pricing that takes into account quantities, discounts, customizations, optional features of products, multiple revenue types, and incompatibilities.
Statistics show that roughly 83% of sales managers already utilize CPQ software, and the rate is expected to grow. On average, the usage of Configure-Price-Quote software helps reduce the number of errors by 40% and increase productivity by 33%.
Basic Facts On Configure-Price-Quote Software
The basic functionality of CPQ software enables sales managers to quickly generate new quotes, apply discounts, and update existing offers. These three crucial stages represent the quoting process:
- Price. A CPQ system automatically calculates the final price, including applied add-ons and discounts.
- Configuration. A user configures a product variation by selecting all its features using a drag-and-drop interface. Inbuilt product validation features can also check if the chosen product variation is in stock.
- Quoting. A quote is created automatically and shared with a client. A quotation can have the form of a payment link or a document.
The primary functionality of a CPQ system is to create and generate quotes. However, a large assortment of CPQ features may foresee the opportunity for sales managers to:
- validate entered data
- check and apply personal discounts
- suggest products to upsell or cross-sell
- update client offers
- generate a visual representation of custom products
- create detailed reports
Types of CPQ systems
The two foremost types of CPQ systems are:
- Out-of-the-box. A system with a predefined set of features is provided by a vendor. Users cannot customize and upgrade out-of-the-box solutions.
- Custom-built. A well-tailored CPQ solution built by a software development company. Users can upgrade it and implement advanced CPQ features.
The most popular out-of-the-box CPQ solutions already presented on the market are as follows.
| Pricing Model | Key Features | Deployment | |
| Salesforce Revenue Cloud | Subscription-based | Product catalog, Discount approvals, Guided selling, Document generation, Automated renewal. | Cloud-based |
| Hubspot Sales Hub | Subscription-based | Customizable quotes, Product library, CRM integration, Interface customization, eSignature integrations. | Cloud-based |
| PandaDoc | Subscription-based | Quote-builder, Product catalog, Pre-made templates, Product showcase, Guided selling. | Cloud-based |
| QuoteWerks | One-time purchase / Subscription-based | Quote generation, Product catalog, Consumer price comparison, Quote viewing statistics. | On-premises / Cloud-based |
| Oracle CPQ | Subscription-based | Automated quote configuration, Guided selling, Document creation, Electronic signatures support, CRM integration. | Cloud-based |
Basic CPQ Requirements And Components
Both custom-made and out-of-the-box solutions need businesses to provide their corporate identity. A brand book may imply a logo, defined brand colors, and rule corporate content composition rules. The information is used to make the interface of CPQ software and generated documents match corporate design rules.
A Configure-Price-Quote system should have a minimum required set of CPQ product features to streamline the workflows of sales managers, which is specified below.
Quote Configuration and Generation
Users enter information about an order manually or import it from a CRM. A CPQ system analyzes entered information and validates it to ensure that all the items are in-stock and can be delivered to a customer. It arranges all the information and generates a quotation as a payment link or a document.
Product Catalog
A database of products or services, along with their variations, enables sales managers to quickly select items using a drop-down list or a search bar. Also, the catalog should imply a list of add-ons for products/services.
CRM Integration
This is not an obligatory CPQ feature, as a Configure-Price-Quote system can work as a standalone solution. However, the integration with a CRM eliminates the need for users to specify all the details about clients manually, which helps significantly improve productivity.
By connecting to a CRM, a price quoting system can fetch data about a customer and services/products requested to form new quotes automatically.
User-Friendly Interface
Creating a visual interface with drag-and-drop functionality is advisable to enable users to quickly compose new quotes by adding new elements to a worksheet. Besides, a user-friendly interface should imply drop-downs, search bars, and pre-made templates.
Discount Management
Many types of discounts can be applied to engage clients to purchase. One of the basic CPQ requirements needs developers to enable the opportunity to apply promotional, custom, personal, or other types of discounts. In some cases, responsible managers should review and approve the application of discounts to offers.
Quote Management
Sales managers should be capable of managing created and shared quotes. Basic CPQ features should deliver the opportunity to review created documents. Also, users should be capable of updating existing quotes upon a need.
Advanced CPQ Features
Mobile Access
According to statistics, more than 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Therefore, advanced CPQ product features should enable quotes to be displayed on mobile devices of different screen sizes, including tablets and smartphones.
AI-Driven Recommendations
A Configure-Price-Quote system can help increase sales by using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to analyze real-time data and suggest items to upsell or cross-sell. AI can analyze large amounts of data and define hidden patterns to make data-baked decisions.
Guided Selling
Guided selling is a set of step-by-step guides and suggestions that help managers quickly compose quotes. It eliminates the need for managers to explore user guides, seeking answers to their questions.
Analytics and Reporting
A dashboard that collects crucial data and displays it in a user-friendly way can help executive managers to track any changes in monitored metrics, like sales volume or an average discount.
Advanced CPQ requirements need developers to enable the opportunity to analyze clients’ activity to track different metrics, like the opening, churn, or quote approval rate.
E-Signature Support
The e-Signature support is a CPQ feature that helps increase the offer acceptance time. Customers can rapidly review and sign new documents electronically to close deals fast.
Recurring Payments
A top-tier CPQ system can provide the opportunity for businesses to enable recurring payments to charge clients on a regular basis. Configure-Price-Quote systems integrated into sales pipelines can automatically configure different charges, create, and send quotes to customers regularly. Also, they need to be capable of updating and canceling the existing subscriptions.
Internationalization
Businesses that sell their products and services worldwide must ensure that customers from any country can interpret shared documents with quotes. Internationalization enables the automatic translation of documents, depending on the client’s country.
Security and Data Protection
Many businesses have to comply with security requirements to keep their customers’ personal information. User authentication management can be enabled by adopting the single sign-on (SSO).
Progressive CPQ features can foresee the opportunity to limit access to shared quotes. For instance, only verified customers can access received quotes to make personal offers inaccessible to the public. Alternatively, users can check received documents only when they sign the terms and conditions.
Visual Representation
Visuals help better present products and engage customers to make a purchase. CPQ systems with top-notch functionality can automatically pick images of configured products from a database and add them to composed documents.
These avanced CPQ features help turn software with basic features into a top-tier solution for creating and sharing quotes to improve performance and customer satisfaction.
How To Define The Right Set Of Features
Conducting a thorough analysis to understand what features should be developed to achieve maximum efficiency is advisable. We recommend taking the following actions:
- Access your company’s needs to clearly understand what business goals you want to achieve by developing new CPQ software.
- Check sales metrics to understand to define points of growth that can be accelerated by developing new software with advanced CPQ features.
- Define customers’ needs to understand reasons that convince customers to choose one company over many competitors.
- Define bottlenecks in sales pipelines to fix problems that prevent sales managers from achieving high-performing results.
- Analyze existing processes to define how they can be improved and what manual activities can be automated to increase efficiency.
- Interview sales managers to collect feedback from experts who directly communicate with customers. Also, sales managers can share useful information on internal processes that should be improved.
Create a list of the top features that will help you fix the most emerging problems and achieve the foremost business goals. Prioritize CPQ product features in your list to begin the development process by implementing the most crucial ones.
Also, it is advisable to develop the prototypes of CPQ features first and test them to ensure they help achieve positive results in a real-world environment. Features that successfully pass the testing stage can be polished and enriched to deliver an outstanding experience to users and clients.
CPQ Software Features You Can’t Ignore
Visual Product Configurations
People want to see what they’re buying — it is that simple. Without the ability to visualize what the final product is, you run the risk of missing the mark and failing to meet customer expectations.
To account for this, several CPQ solutions offer some type of visual product configuration.
Automated Quoting and Pricing Management
Salespeople only spend 35.2% of their time on selling. The other 64.8% is spent on administrative tasks, entering data into their CRM, attending internal meetings, and other non-sales-related activities.
Fortunately, automation has the ability to eliminate a large portion of those mundane, manual tasks.
For example, the CPQ feature of quoting management updates quotes automatically as customers configure their orders. This reduces quoting errors while freeing up your sales reps to focus on closing the sale.
Pricing management also provides automatic pricing updates that you can apply system-wide to ensure accuracy and efficiency.
Cloud-Based, Mobile-Friendly CPQ Solution
Today’s sales teams operate on the go, which means their sales technology should as well. For easy access to customer orders, quotes, pricing, and proposals, you need to look for a cloud-based, mobile-friendly CPQ solution.
By deploying CPQ software in the cloud on NetPRM, your team can access the system on location during a client meeting and make important updates on the fly. A mobile-friendly interface also enables your sales reps to access important customer information while traveling on sales calls.
Cloud storage and mobile interfaces not only increase the accessibility of the tool for your sales team, but they also save you the infrastructure and IT costs associated with installing and storing the software on-site. And with minimal overhead, your CPQ investment will have a greater ROI.
Guided Selling
Another way to increase sales efficiency is through guided selling, which enables customers to find and build their ideal product(s) without taking a sales rep away from other tasks. Through the use of custom questionnaires and forms to kick off the ordering process, guided selling uses those answers to show customers products that match their exact needs.
Your sales reps also receive the answers so they can suggest relevant products or accessories, increasing the potential revenue from the sale.
Advanced Rules Engine
As a manufacturer or distributor of complex, custom products, you have most likely experienced your fair share of product combination errors. These are costly for a business, as they force refunds and decrease customer satisfaction.
Instead of relying on sales or even billing to catch those errors, a CPQ with an advanced rules engine does the trick automatically. A robust rules engine prevents pricing, bundling, and calculation errors from ever making it into a quote, let alone an order.
Integration into ERP/CRM Systems
The average salesperson has to access six different systems throughout the sales process. If you can find a CPQ solution that integrates with the majority of those systems (like your CRM or ERP), you will centralize all of that important information into one system for your sales team.
And with important order and customer information at their fingertips, your sales team can respond faster to customer requests and questions, as well as propose more relevant cross-selling and upselling opportunities.
Reporting
Reporting is an important CPQ software feature that allows you to see where in the ordering process your customers are dropping off. It also shows you which customizations are most popular, how successful your discounts are, and other important insights.
Armed with this information, you can make significant improvements to your ordering experience, resulting in more orders going through and greater customer satisfaction.
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