7 Benefits of CPQ and CRM Integration
Did you know CRMs can increase sales by as much as 29%, boost your sales productivity by 34%, and increase your sales forecast accuracy by 42%? A report from Nucleus Research cites that the average return on investment of CRMs was $8.71 for each dollar spent. There’s no doubt CRMs are incredibly important for the sales team.
However, when it comes to things like complex quoting processes, CRMs often come up short. For example, many companies that have invested in a CRM solution still manage quoting in Microsoft Excel or Word. This means slow and manual processes, errors, and unnecessary risk are part of every deal for many companies.
There’s a simple and smart way to overcome these challenges. By integrating CRM software with configure, price, quote (CPQ) software your sales team will have a powerful AI-driven selling platform that seamlessly integrates within their existing workflow, features an already-familiar interface, and leverages common data to maximize efficiency and minimize error.
Value-added solutions like CPQ alleviate the stress of an overcomplicated CRM, allowing your sales team to reap the full benefit of the CRM solution.
The 7 Benefits of a CPQ and CRM Integration
Here are seven ways that integrating CPQ with your CRM will increase CRM adoption, sales team productivity, and your overall bottom line.
1. Identify Sales Opportunities
Finding sales leads is a difficult task for sales teams and many spend countless hours a week figuring out who to sell what products to. CRM integrations with CPQ can help your salespeople identify and pursue new sales opportunities, leading to increased revenue. Solutions with this integrated capability, like PROS Smart Configure Price Quote, leverage AI algorithms to uncover these leads in existing customer accounts. Why is this important? Existing customers are 5x more likely to buy additional products from you than new customers.
2. Reduce Admin Time and Accelerate Responsiveness
On average, sales reps spend 60-75% of their time on administrative tasks and prep work, including configuring products, generating accurate price quotes, and delivering the quotes to customers. This means that far less time is used to actually sell products. By incorporating your CPQ with your CRM, you can automate and give them back a large portion of their work week to do what they’re good at: selling.
Also, the software will help your sales reps customize product configurations and create a personalized quote in minutes. Also, since the software removes the concern for human error while calculating quotes, you won’t need to worry about misquoting a customer.
3. Identify the Right Products for Customers with a Digital Catalog
Sales representatives often only sell the products they’re familiar with, rather than customizing per customer. With a seamless CPQ and CRM integration, your sales team will have access to a digital catalog of all your products and configuration options right at their fingertips, as well as intelligent techniques that will help make choosing the right products. They’ll be able to work closely with customers to make real-time modifications to the products to best meet the customers' wants and needs. They will also be able to find and recommend additional products that will be well-suited for specific customers.
4. Pinpoint Rewarding Cross-Sell Opportunities
Cross-selling can turn a small purchase into a much larger one when customers add other products to an existing order. With CPQ software, cross-selling will become easier for your sales reps, ensuring that it occurs more frequently. Leading CPQ solutions go one step further by leveraging AI algorithms to personalize the product recommendations for each customer.
These AI-based CPQ solutions will also learn from customer behaviors and tweak the product recommendations to be even more personalized resulting in a better customer experience and more sales.
5. Close Deals Faster with Price Recommendations
HubSpot found that 28% of salespeople say closing a deal is the toughest part when making a sale.
CRM integrations with CPQ not only increase your sales reps’ chances of closing a deal, but also allow them to close deals much faster. Since the software recommends accurate pricing information, they will be able to present a quote with fair pricing to customers almost instantly. This will remove the opportunity for customers to have second thoughts about their purchase or look for alternatives, increasing the chances that they will purchase your product.
6. Reduce Training Time for New or Complex Products
Typically, when you introduce new or especially complex products, you need to spend a lot of time training your sales team. You must cover all the different functions and features of the products, the various ways of customizing them, the ways they will benefit customers, and which types of customers would be most likely to purchase the product. CPQ can drastically cut down on this training time since your sales reps will be able to easily access information relating to the product as well as customizations and pricing information.
7. Receive Analytical Insights Related to Performance
PROS Smart Configure Price Quote will allow you to receive valuable insights into your sales team and the data relating to their product sales. You’ll be able to view their sales records and see which products they are selling the most. You’ll also be able to view the quotes for products that didn’t sell and look for trends. This can indicate whether you need to adjust your pricing strategy or marketing related to specific products or features.
Choosing the Right CPQ Software
When you are looking to increase CRM adoption by integrating CPQ software, you will want to take the time to ensure you make the right decision. All CPQ software options are not created equal.
There are two main types of CPQ architecture: native and hybrid. While native CPQ is only compatible with the specific CRM for which it was built, a hybrid option can become integrated with almost any customer relationship management tool. This allows for flexibility in the event your organization ever decides to adopt a new CRM. If you have a global business, then your regional sales teams may be using different CRMs already. Choosing a hybrid CPQ will ensure compatibility with the various CRMs used by different parts of your organization.
Hybrid CPQs are also not tied to governor limitations of the CRM. They will be able to more seamlessly integrate with your existing CRM.
If you are looking to increase the effectiveness and adoption of your CRM, consider integrating CPQ software with your customer relationship management tools. PROS Smart Configure Price Quote can help make your sales reps more confident and efficient, boost sales, increase profits, and ensure customer satisfaction. Say goodbye to the days of long turnaround times for quotes, costly errors, and unproductive sales teams. CRM integration with PROS Smart Configure Price Quote can transform your business.
Want to learn more about how CPQ software can help your organization reduce pain points in the sales process and drive ROI? Read more about the top five things to consider when selecting CPQ vendor software so you can make the right decision.