A decade back, when CPQ (Configure, Price, and Quote) gained interaction, it was seen as a revolutionizing phase for Chief Revenue Officers (CROs), Sales personnel, and VPS. Now, when most industries are integrating machine learning to grow their businesses, why not CPQ?
In an article published by BCG, it was found that AI-driven CPQ platforms will help organizations increase their revenue by 5% in just nine months. AI assists to quote the most accurate price with suitable product bundles.
Automating tasks such as price quotations, user-experience analysis and other data intrusive work will reduce the risk of errors and help businesses divert manpower into something that requires human support. AI is apt for analysing big chunks of data in just a few seconds when combined with a robust Salesforce CPQ system.
The Salesforce CPQ software primarily helps businesses quote accurate pricing for orders, but when combined with AI, its power is tenfold. Artificial intelligence makes everything faster; its integration with Salesforce CPQ will allow businesses to understand user behaviour and offer them items that match their past sales trends.
Problems that Businesses might be facing using the regular CPQ
As we are adapting to more user-friendly technology, just using traditional CPQ and billing tools might not be enough to increase customer retention and grow revenue for businesses. It’s time that businesses must supercharge CPQ with AI and overcome some of the biggest problems mentioned below:
- Lack of customer interactions, leading to lower closed deals;
- Absence of personalized offers that the users might be interested in;
- Higher up-front cost due to unavailability of efficient tools for handling a wider audience;
- Single-price listing is not feasible for businesses with varied prices across regions or partners;
- Inability to market content; just focused on selling;
- Manual coding is required while making any changes;
- Incompetence to synchronize omnichannel and multi-channel sales; and
- No user insights to help businesses make the right decisions. Sales reps have to study extensive data to be able to come to a conclusion.
How AI-based CPQ helps to improve sales?
1. Real-time pricing quotations
AI-driven CPQ software identifies what customers are willing to pay in real-time and chooses the most appropriate product mix.
The technology helps in finding out the relevant discount percentage to make an appropriate quotation. Businesses try to maximize user experience by identifying their weak spots and offering the best product bundles.
Real-time pricing quotations functionality will also allow easy upselling and cross-selling which is super handy for b2b e-commerce businesses.
Moreover, it is much quicker than traditional methods and multiplies the chances of closing the deal. AI-based Salesforce CPQ places the right information on the dashboard within seconds, helping users choose the most appropriate quote.
2. Analyse user behavior to offer personalized quotations
According to research done by McKinsey, it was found that businesses that used user-behavioral insights outperformed 85 % of their competitors and generated 25% more gross revenue. This is because customer behavior plays a major role in identifying the best quote for the clients. The AI-based CPQ analyses every user’s purchasing pattern and comes up with a personalized quote that has the highest capacity of closing the deal.
3. Interact using chatbots
AI-Chatbots are much smarter than a regular messaging app. Customers can now directly ask questions through websites, email, or apps and get direct sales quotations. They don’t have to wait for a salesperson to get approval and then send them a response.
Also, chatbots are preferred by approximately 50% of online businesses, minimizing the risk of customer loss. As the conversations go, these chatbots also upsell and cross-sells, bringing in more sales.
4. Make adequate changes using AI-driven CPQ
Classic CPQ is not capable of capturing crucial information from databases to help CROs and VPs make regular quotation upgrades.
However, by integrating Salesforce CPQ solutions into b2b e-commerce, businesses can create an ecosystem that learns, implements, and relearns to offer the most accurate quote.
Powered by efficiency and accuracy, businesses get rid of unproductive user discounts and free up their financial resources. This price optimization technique through AI has resulted in increasing revenue by a substantial percentage.
5. Competence to scale up businesses
AI-based Salesforce CPQ solutions break all barriers while scaling up businesses. Here, sales reps are not dealing with per-user or per-transaction charges but rather unlimited quotations, which can be generated without any price raise.
This helps businesses scale up and create a multichannel and omnichannel path for a wider audience reach. AI CPQs is competent to work on extensive data to come up with the most optimal quotations.
6. Removes 70% of businesses administrative work
Traditional CPQs only forward the Bill of Materials (BOM) to either CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). However, this is definitely not the finish line for businesses dealing with 10-12 vendors simultaneously with different quotation parameters.
On the other hand, the Salesforce CPQ will gather past user information and dig through the insights to get the perfect quote within seconds. AI-based CPQ is already generating sales, therefore, manpower should be directed towards handling the administrative work.
Final thoughts
AI-driven CPQs are here to change the operational dynamics of businesses, helping them scale and get more business done. The Salesforce CPQ and billing system allows businesses to deal with multiple vendors without compromising the accuracy of the quotations.
Businesses can easily add on products, and it will automatically correlate them with the set rules. If this excites you, then go ahead and read how Salesforce CPQ integrates AI for smart selling.
Source: Drive Sales and Improve Revenue with AI-driven CPQ
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