What is CPQ (Configure Price Quote)?

The sales environment, whether that is business to consumer or business to business, has become one where building a streamlined internal process can help close deals faster and increase products sold. One very important step in that process is the creation of a Quote. For a company in a fast-paced industry, what encompasses a Quote can change quickly. This causes sales representatives to bounce between various platforms to offer the correct product, discount, or product addition.

That is time and effort being lost that is better spent nurturing additional leads and closing more deals. 

If you have noticed your team is missing upsell opportunities or failing to take into account existing discounts or additional products that may be beneficial to the customer, then CPQ can revolutionize your selling process.

What is CPQ?

CPQ, or Configure Price Quote, is a feature that expands and simplifies the Quote creation process. I know those two phrases sound inherently incompatible, but stick with me a bit longer and I’ll explain why that is not true.

Learn more about CPQ and its functionality in a CRM

CPQ allows for a sales team to generate highly customized quotes for varied products based on both the customers’ requests and internal discounts and recommendations. CPQ automates the Quote creation process where product options are displayed and easily selected once the product is added into the Quote and discounts are immediately applied when parameters are met. So, while the products themselves may be complex, the process to add them into each quote is much simpler. This process allows for the quotes to be sent to the customers with just a few clicks.

For Vtiger CRM, CPQ contains six new features. These features are:

1. Product Family – A product family is a parent entity that represents a group of products. (A computer)
2. Product Variant – A product variant is a product belonging to a product family with variant values applied. (1 TB storage computer)
3. Product Options – A set of individual products created as additions that can be selected when using flexible bundles. (computer mouse)
4. Flexible Bundle – A product with multiple items each having one or more options.
5. Product Rules – Rules used to validate that the correct items have been added to a quote/deal or that the correct recommendations have been displayed for the user.
6. Discounts – Rules governing the automatic discounts applied based on items added to a quote/deal

Once these are configured within Vtiger, complex products can be added within Quotes or Deals.

Is CPQ right for my business?

The next step to understanding CPQ is whether this feature would fit within your business model.

At a base level, CPQ is intended for companies of all sizes selling complex products. These are highly configurable products that can be adjusted to fit specific customer needs such as enterprise level software or industrial machinery. If you sell pre-built or simple products that are often purchased as-is from the customer, CPQ would not be a good fit.

Additionally, if you notice any of these common problems within your organization, then CPQ can be a great fit to help alleviate the negative impact these processes have in the selling process.

1. Complexity in the Sales Process – Sales reps have to consider many options and SKUs when creating a Quote
2. Sales reps are sending Quotes and Deals in different formats
3. Sales reps are sending quotes without approvals
4. Sales reps are spending too much time generating quotes
5. Onboarding new sales reps is taking longer because they have to learn the long list of products and complex pricing rules
6. Product Options – The products have pricing and configuration dependencies that must be taken into account when generating a quote
7. Missed discounts, upselling, and cross selling opportunities

Vtiger CPQ Benefits

Now that you have a rough idea of whether CPQ is a good fit for your business, the next question should be ‘what are the benefits?’.

I find the benefits of CPQ, specifically in the context of Vtiger, can be broken down into five meaningful metrics.

1. Reduce Risk – With the addition of CPQ, you can greatly reduce the number of errors made when generating Quotes. This will prevent adding incompatible products, setting inaccurate prices, and adding unapproved discounts. 
2. Increase Conversion – Convert more deals into finalized sales by having the proper tools to generate in-depth Deals and Quotes.
3. Close Deals Faster – Speed is integral to making sales, particularly when it comes to finalizing the sale itself. CPQ reduces time spent on the admin side of the sale so sales representatives can spend more time on conversations.
4. Close More Deals – With less time spent on generating quotes, more time can be spent on closing deals, which in turn can be finalized quicker with easier quote generation.
5. Simplify Billing – With accurate pricing, discount calculations, automatic proposal generation, billing is simpler.

If this resonates with you, you should take advantage of the new CPQ feature within Vtiger CRM. 

Additionally, we will be releasing a series of blogs covering the feature in-depth within Vtiger CRM. Keep an eye out as we dive deep into each aspect of CPQ and how it can best be used by your business.