CRM and CPQ software products are important tools that are actively used by many companies and enterprises in various industries. These tools perform different tasks but can operate simultaneously. There are cases when a company uses CRM, and there is no need to use CPQ functionality. It is necessary to evaluate the needs of the company in order to decide on the relevance of integrating CPQ into the CRM system.
What is CRM?
It is a software product that is used to manage customer relationships. It offers the best solution for customers’ data and helps to handle it effectively, thus contributing to business growth. It also helps in gaining insights into customer behavior and facilitates communication and customer service activities. The benefits of this software include:
- Improving customer service.
- Helping to boost sales.
- Improving customer satisfaction.
- Creating new opportunities.
- Helping to improve customer content.
- Communicating data.
- Reducing costs.
- Managing customer updates.
The advanced CRM program also includes features for managing potential customers, multiple sales, activity tracking, reporting, and forecasting.
It is an effective tool for industrial enterprises as it helps to manage and improve sales. It helps to save time and increase customer satisfaction by automating various tasks.
What is a CPQ?
CPQ is software that enables dynamic pricing for customized services or products, which saves time and increases the efficiency of salespeople’s performance.
This tool is capable of handling tedious tasks for sales teams. It applies various rules that help it make sure salespeople are selling the right products together rather than lumping incompatible products together. Also, it can suggest products that no one thinks of. These could be online cash registers, email auto-tracking, or other options.
When it comes to its key features – configure, price, quote, the tool is highly flexible. It can be used to create custom pricing models that fit unique services and products. This flexibility enables users to react quickly to changes in the marketplace and keep prices competitive at all times.
Other advantages of this tool include:
- Increased volume of offers.
- Capacity to reduce sales cycles.
- A tendency for a large number of reps to achieve the set quantities.
- Creating accurate quotations for complex products.
- Increasing the chances of converting leads into customers.
- A modern CPQ tool is all about the management of quotes, prices, discounts, etc.
Using CPQ, many companies are able to manage complex pricing for their products and services. For example, industrial sectors are constantly challenged by varying material quality, sizes, colors, and functionality. Therefore, these companies use this tool to customize and optimize operations with automated pricing and ordering processes. This ensures excellent pricing for their products and helps them spend time on other important tasks such as sales.
Differences between CPQ and CRM
These two systems differ in their extensive capacities. They can send quotes and close sales but each has its own pros and cons.
When it comes to pricing, CPQ software is more flexible than CRM tools. It can be used to create custom pricing models to fit unique services and products produced by specific companies. This flexibility enables users to respond quickly to changes in the marketplace. If a company sells a product with different configurations, the system helps create a pricing model that reflects the different combinations.
As to the CRM system, it requires users to set a specific price for each combination. This process can result in a lot of duplicated data. It also takes a lot of resources and makes it difficult to maintain an accurate pricing structure.
In terms of reporting, the CPQ tool enables robust analysis and reporting. This way it is possible to understand the pricing strategy and make adjustments as needed. Also, CRM systems feature in-depth reporting that is customized for customer interactions and lifecycle tracking. The reports made through a CRM program are great but they don’t have the same detail and efficiency regarding sales and proposals..
As for dynamic quoting, CPQ quotes are notable for their dynamism. If a company’s offer needs special settings and conditions, they appear automatically. This contributes to increased efficiency. It is possible to integrate e-signature software directly into the company’s quotes.
CRM is a standalone software. All sales, marketing, and customer service can be performed within there. As to CPQ solutions, some of them can be used on a stand-alone basis. However, this tool only helps to manage pricing and negotiation processes, unlike CRM.
Other Tools for Companies
PandaDoc is an excellent software solution that can be used in a variety of fields and activities. It helps to manage documents. It can be used to create a whole range of documents, agreements, contracts, quotes, and much more. It can be used by company management, as well as employees of marketing and sales departments.
It is possible to make an appropriate choice among the huge variety of templates available on the website. Furthermore, they can be downloaded for free. The collaboration feature enables different people to work on the same documents by making comments, and adjustments, as well as maintaining an activity log. Furthermore, the electronic signature feature makes it possible for users to sign contracts or agreements at any time and at any location.
This platform will become an indispensable assistant in working with documents. It offers users a whole range of different packages with tools, furthermore, they all have a reasonable cost. However, it is strongly recommended to take advantage of the free trial period before making the purchase. This option provides everyone with the opportunity to evaluate each of the offers for 14 days and decide which package is the best choice.
