How to Maximize Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction with Configure Price Quote Tools

Is your sales team sick and tired of spending days generating quotes for complex, configurable products? Look no further than Configure Price Quote (CPQ) tools. These software systems streamline the sales process by automating slow, arduous tasks, reducing the workload of under-pressure teams.

In this article, we'll explain the benefits of CPQ tools and the advanced features to look for. We’ll explore how visual product configuration can take your sales process to the next level with augmented and virtual reality. 

By the end of this article, you will have a clear understanding of whether your company would benefit from a CPQ tool and, if you already have one, how to ensure you are fully utilizing its capabilities.

Let’s go for it.

What Are Configure Price Quote Tools?

Configure Price Quote (CPQ) tools are software systems that help businesses generate quotes for configurable products quickly and accurately. These tools typically include features for configuring products and services, calculating prices, and, as mentioned, generating quotes and proposals in a variety of formats. 

CPQ tools are used in various industries but provide the most incredible value to manufacturers of complex, configurable products. These companies frequently offer hundreds of thousands of technical options, attributes, and components and so find it hard to provide a slick customer experience. With so many moving parts (no pun intended), pricing is prone to mistakes, and producing quotes, estimates, and proposals takes ages.

Some basic features of CPQ tools include:

• Product configuration: Users can select the specific features and options for a product or service being quoted. Instead of relying on pen and paper, they use an intuitive graphical user interface. Product rules contained in the software ensure every configuration is optimized for the customer and error-free.
• Pricing calculation: CPQ determines the cost of the configured product based on the selected features and options and calculates a price in real-time.
• Quote and proposal generation: CPQ auto-generates professional-looking quotes and proposals based on the configured product or service and the calculated price.

Many CPQ tools include features that allow multiple users to work on a quote or proposal simultaneously, making it easier to collaborate and get approvals. They also integrate with other business systems, such as CRM, ERP, and eCommerce platforms, providing seamless workflows. 

The Benefits of CPQ Tools

Here are some of the ways a robust CPQ tool can improve your business:

1. Faster Sales Cycles:  CPQ software automates many of the most time-consuming sales tasks, making the sales process more efficient and streamlined. Providing customers with quotes can take weeks for manufacturers using traditional methods, but with CPQ, quotes take seconds, 
2. Greater Accuracy: Automation reduces the scope for human error and eliminates much of the back and forth that causes delays. Guaranteed accuracy at the configuration stage removes engineering bottlenecks. 
3. Enhances Customer Satisfaction: CPQ quoting tools create accurate quotes and proposals super-quick, making customers’ lives easier and leading to stronger relationships and loyalty.

Advanced CPQ Technology for Manufacturing

To maximize efficiency, minimize mistakes, and improve the customer experience, manufacturers of configurable products should consider implementing a CPQ solution with advanced features beyond the basic ones previously mentioned. The key feature to look out for: is 3D product configuration. Let’s find out why.

The Power of 3D Product Configuration

We’ve already discussed how CPQ lets users configure products using a graphical user interface (called a configurator). It’s a big step up from the napkin sketches on which many salespeople still rely. But CPQ configurators vary significantly in how they function from a user perspective. And some perform far better than others. The best are visual.

Visual product configurators enable users to configure products by interacting with lifelike 3D models. They can drag and drop to assemble their perfect configuration–tweaking materials, colors, and dimensions as they go–until they have the optimal design for their use case–at the right price.

When choosing a CPQ tool, look for a solution with the most advanced visual capabilities possible. You don’t have to use them right away. But as customer expectations increase and you’re fighting for a way to differentiate your products from competitors, you’ll soon wish you had prioritized visual product configuration over anything text-heavy.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are the most potent visual technologies on the market and are included in some CPQ tools. This is how they work:Augmented Reality (AR) 

AR lets users view 3D models of their configurable products through their smartphone or tablet. Content is linked to specific locations in the real world using a technique called “marker tracking.” So when a user views a real-world place through the camera on their device, the digital content is superimposed onto the view of the real world. This creates the illusion that the digital image is a part of the physical environment, enabling users to see how a configurable product will look in situ. 

Virtual Reality (VR)

VR lets users experience and interact with a simulated environment as if it were real. It’s typically accessed through a headset that covers the user's eyes and ears and sometimes includes hand-held controllers that vibrate as users interact with the world around them.

Manufacturers can leverage VR to build out entire virtual showrooms containing products that customers can view and use. Salespeople can “meet” with customers virtually, wherever they are in the real world. Like AR, VR configuration experiences can be delivered entirely online.

The Benefits of Visual Product Configuration

Is visual product configuration a worthwhile investment for your company? Here are the core benefits to help you decide:

1. Incredible Customer Experiences: Allowing customers to design and customize their own products using interactive 3D models provides a buying journey that’s both transparent and engaging. Adding AR and VR makes the experience fully immersive, attracting new customers, helping you stand out from the competition, and marking you as a manufacturer on the leading edge of digital transformation.
2. Increased Win Rates and Deal Sizes: Offering customers the ability to design and customize their own products increases the appeal of your offering and drives more sales. Visualization adds clarity. Showing customers their finished products before they order builds trust and confidence.
3. Lower Costs: By providing customers with a visual representation of their customizations, manufacturers can reduce the risk of poorly-optimized products or misunderstandings, leading to fewer returns and refund requests. 
4. A Larger Total Addressable Market: The ability to sell complicated products online expands the market size, enabling manufacturers to break out of the confines of their local customer base and reach a global audience.

The Bottom Line

Configure Price Quote tools can significantly improve efficiency and customer satisfaction for companies that sell complex, configurable products. These systems streamline product configuration, pricing calculation, and quote and proposal generation, automating them and reducing the risk of error. 

With advanced features like 3D product configuration and augmented and virtual reality, manufacturers can take their sales process to the next level and provide an enhanced customer experience that drives engagement, accuracy, and revenue.