Top 5 CPQ Software Features you Should Know

Are you dealing with complex products and wish to increase the productivity of your sales reps? Want to get rid of mundane tasks associated with manual quoting? Well, you need to automate your quoting process with appropriate software that makes it easy to configure, price and quote complex products. When choosing Catalog management software, we ensure that it has features like easy category management, filterable specifications, etc. Similarly, while picking a CPQ software for your product-based business, make sure it has the following features:

1. Ability to Visualize the Final Product

When you are into the business of creating custom product configurations, you need to show the appearance of the final product. This is because buyers want to know how their final product configuration looks CPQ softwareapplications available today have the functionality to show a 2D/3D visual representation of the final product. Some CPQ solutions come with an interactive (drag and drop) interface that provides an immersive shopping experience and boosts engagement. So if you want to improve your overall customer experience, make sure your CPQ tool comes with a visual 2D/3D product configurator.

2. Equipped with Advanced Rules Engine

When you are selling highly complex products, your sales reps are likely to make mistakes while configuring, bundling or pricing products. However, this can be easily avoided with CPQ tools that have a built-in advanced rules engine. Based on your organization's pricing structure, CPQ defines rules to price and configure products. As a result, your sales reps don't have to worry about whether one component is compatible with the other while configuring products. The advanced rules engine restricts which components are available to place into a configuration. It ensures that configurations are created accurately without any pricing errors. Moreover, the advanced rules engine has to be highly customizable, so that you can formalize the rules for pricing and configuration as per your business needs.

3. Web-based Software Tools

A web-based or cloud-based CPQ software will allow you to handle your complex quoting process as long as your device is connected to the Internet. Internet-connectivity is all that is needed to use cloud-based CPQ tools. No expensive IT infrastructure or installation is needed to use Online sales quoting software. You can manage your complex quoting activity from any Internet-enabled device. Although on-premise CPQ tools allow you to create quotes in minutes, they are not easy to manage. Cloud-based tools provide the flexibility of working from your Internet-enabled laptops, which can help to boost overall efficiency.

4. Ability to access CPQ Information from Anywhere

This is possible if the CPQ software comes with smartphone apps. Smartphone apps will make it easier to handle your complete quoting activity because it allows you to use your mobile devices to configure, price and quote products on the go. With the smartphone app installed on your mobile devices, your smartphones and tablets can help in configuring products. The ability to manage quoting activity on the run can have a positive impact on your business revenue.

5. Reporting

How will you know which configurations are in great demand? If you want to know which configurations are selling the most, make sure your CPQ software comes with a reporting feature. Generate various types of reports and get more visibility into which custom configurations are growing in popularity. The reporting feature will give you an in-depth understanding of how your business is progressing. On the whole, if you want to relieve yourself from the headache of creating complex quotes, automate the process by choosing appropriate quoting software. It will help you to accelerate your sales cycle and close big deals. There is little doubt that you can save countless hours of your work by incorporating CPQ software into your business. Moreover, it comes with robust integration capabilities, which means you can connect your CPQ tool with any software application and streamline your processes.