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Deloitte estimates that 36 percent of all consumers wish for customized products from their favorite brands. One in five can also pay a premium for it, and most will wait a few days more for it.

The 2020s have given a new degree of accessibility to customization – with that has come huge demand. Providing accurate quotes on customized products can be a headache. But with quoting software, it’s easy.

Sales quoting software enables businesses to quickly deliver customized products and quotes even when product options are in the dozens or hundreds. That’s critical for the manufacturing industry, as it needs immense accuracy in the said configurations.

Here’s a closer look at what quoting software is and why you should use it for your business.

What’s Quoting Software?

Quoting software – often referred to as CPQ or configure-price-quote – is a tool for accurate pricing for complex products to your customers quickly.

It works like this:

A customer calls your sales rep and tells what they need. The sales rep enters the features into the configurator, automatically calculating the price on the given variables. This number goes back to the client. The entire process takes a few minutes.

It can also work like this:

A customer visits your website and plays with your 3D configurator. The price updates in real-time when they select different options. When they’ve settled on the best combination of features and addons, they add it to their shopping cart and check out like a usual e-commerce transaction.

If you’ve ever selected options like colors, custom text, fabrics, or other preferences, then you’ve interacted with a brand powering its customer experience with CPQ. Today’s visual CPQ solutions are so advanced that they can do the same for buyers of highly technical, configurable products in the biotech space.

Sales Quoting Software Packs Efficiency, Accuracy, and Amazing Experiences

Imagine what your company could achieve if your sales reps spent more than 36 percent of their time selling, as that is the average time reps give to revenue-generating activities.

Even if your company uses a CRM, there’s a big chance that CPQ gives an opportunity to streamline the manual business processes. This is exactly where 60 percent of your sales reps’ time gets compromised.

Sales automation software, or a CPQ, that integrates with your CRM, takes a huge burden off your sales team by taking over those mundane processes that would otherwise be done by hand. In the process, it also:

• Boosts the sales cycle.
• Allows more automation of the manufacturing processes.
• Better business insights.
• Delivers a smooth business environment.
• Governs the B2B and B2C customer engagement.
• Boosts the consistency of business processes and customer experience.

Why Excel is Not Good to Track Product Options & Pricing

Do you use Excel to track your current pricing and product options? You’re not alone. If hundreds of those Excel templates for such purposes are an indication, it’s one of the popular uses for this program.

If you’re producing complex products though, it’s a bad solution.

Excel has a number of uses. But using it for configurations, pricing, and quotes brings in risks your business doesn’t require. For example:

• Manual processes are very slow. Scrolling through pages of Excel sheets by hand cuts on time and patience. Sure, Excel has those search functions, but…
• Cryptic codes also invite errors. To keep the sheets from swelling to huge sizes, a lot of vendors turn to codes or numbers to organize things. But what when two numbers get switched, or the wrong code is copied? It’s an absolute nightmare.
• Version control is pretty tough. Keeping everyone on the same page through Excel book means sending out a new version every time it’s updated. You could also try using one of the many cloud spreadsheet options, but they generally don’t have all the functionality of the actual program.
• Human capital has a risk. Codes are to be learned, which means that you will lose that expertise whenever a sales rep moves out of the company. Until the new one gets acquainted perfectly, you are running the risk of making more errors and generating much slower quotes.

Perfect Manufacturing Quoting Software

When it comes to the perfect software solutions, many options are available from well-known vendors like Salesforce, HubSpot, and IBM to smaller and more specialized vendors.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. However, there are much better or worse choices on your specific business needs and industry. That’s more true for companies in manufacturing. Here’s a look at what the best quoting software for manufacturing is all about.

You’re specifically looking for two things:

1. Not Too Big, Not Too Small

Most quote-to-cash and CPQ solutions out there are rich when it is about the features. Most integrate flawlessly with CRMs, and many take over most of all your backend operations. 

These programs assume that if you are big enough to depend on a CRM solution, you need every single feature you can get.

On the flip side, heavily specialized solutions might lead in the opposite direction. They will give those tools needed to manage your backend or provide a sophisticated configurator but depend a little too heavily on your CRM for the product details. 

When it comes to the right quoting software for manufacturing, you need to find the perfect fit. That means it:

• Allows you to scale the size of your software. This usually takes the format of integration support or even subscriptions to let you upgrade or downgrade as needed.
• Feels approachable. It may be robust, but you will not feel like using it if you feel overwhelmed. A good test? Check out what the analytics dashboard looks like. If you’re comfortable with the board, you’ll surely be able to take care of the rest.

2. Customer-Centric

Many CPQ solutions are just backend services,  meaning that they don’t have any public or customer-facing component. The product configurator is then reserved for your sales rep, and there’s also no support to embed it on your website.

For today’s buyers, that’s not sufficient. Increasingly, they want to self-serve. 

Therefore, you need to look for:

• Product configurators with user-friendly interfaces. 2D or 3D, this is a sign that it’s built to drive customer engagement and not merely office efficiency.
• Automation of the sales cycles and pricing. Real-time pricing updates quotes automatically, while sales cycle automation helps get products in customers’ hands faster.

Use A Suitable Quoting and Sales Automation Software

When your company gives out complex and customized products, using quoting software is a best practice. CPQ solutions like Salesforce CPQ, KBMax, and others streamline your entire sales cycle – from customer wish with the help of manufacturing and delivery. 

We’ve covered what quoting software is, how it works, and the benefits that you can reap from deploying it in your business. We’ve even taken a look at a few tools for B2B and B2C companies of all sizes to give you a sense of what’s out there.

No matter what quoting software you choose, make sure it’s the sales automation software that makes you quicker, more efficient, and better to respond to your customers’ needs. That’s the only way forward in the era of mass customization at scale.