I was surfing the internet and came across a great article by Angela Scott-Briggs in TechBullion, Indicators That Your Business Needs a CPQ Software, and thought it could use a sequel.
Here are the Indicators that your business needs a SERVICES CPQ Software
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The demand for professional services is growing rapidly, and with growth comes an increased need for more efficient, automated processes. Professional Services teams are quickly learning that they need to leverage more technology and give prospects and customers the experience they desire in order to win, retain and upsell, but technological innovation in their department is lagging behind.
The complexity of services and the amount of teams (PS, CS, Sales, Finance etc.) involved in the process creates ambiguity. The process from start to finish needs to adopt a champion or leader – one who sets guardrails, governance, and strict standardization of offerings.
Even with all the advancement in B2B technologies, services technology is still very much archaic usually consisting of excel docs, email exchanges, and multiple revisions to complete a single SOW. In order for services to advance, the entire selling process needs to be integrated into the existing technology already used by the service selling teams.
What is Services CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote)
CPQ; or Configure, Price, Quote software is designed to help streamline a team’s ability to quickly and easily generate quotes and proposals for a customer. It allows a user to build a custom configuration of products, price that configuration and turn it into a selling document based on rules and logic.
Most CPQs allow users to search “price books” and “SKUs” that match what the customer is looking for. Although effective to products, product-based CPQs struggle with services as they are significantly more complex, driven by the custom nature of services (versus products). Service-based CPQs are designed to solve this issue.
Services CPQ; or Services Configure, Price, Quote software enables services sales teams (Sales, PS, CS, Revenue) to quickly, easily, and accurately generate custom services quotes and proposals for prospects and clients. Services CPQ simplifies the sales process by standardizing services offerings, providing governance and using logic and automation to attach the right professional services offerings with ease, seamlessly passing that data into your CRM.
Signs Services CPQ is needed by your business
The first indication that your business will benefit from implementing Services CPQ software is if your products are accompanied by professional services (implementations, training, custom development, integrations, migrations, technical account management, consulting). Other indicators include the complexity of your services require custom proposals for every situation. These custom proposals include a lengthy, manual process and require the participation of several teams to review and approve – which results in multiple versions before delivering to a client or prospect.
Your Business has difficulty with the following areas
- It takes weeks to generate a statement of work
- Professional Services is too involved in the SOW process
- Your SOW process is not scalable
- You cannot keep up with the volume of SOWs
- Sales often mis-scopes a prospects services needs due to complexity, lack of training, or sales’ interests in selling supporting services
- The approval process for each SOW is lengthy and requires multiple teams and iterations
- You have a low services attach rates
You work in the following industries
- SaaS/Technology
- Software Implementation
- Agency
- Telecom & Communications
- Engineering & Manufacturing
Additional Test
If the above still has you questioning whether a Services CPQ can bring value to your organization there are alternative ways to determine the value. Examining your professional services offerings, your services sales process, and metrics like attach rate, churn, upsell, and services revenue.
Concluding Statement
Professional services are complex and hard to sell. Services CPQ was created to make selling professional services fast, easy and accurate by giving teams the ability to digitize services catalogs, automate the discovery of professional services, and enabling teams to deliver quick and error-free quotes. Services CPQ significantly shortens the time it takes to get a correct SOW in the hands of a prospect resulting in shorter sales cycles, increased win rates, product adoption and a reduction in churn.
Who is WorkRails
WorkRails, the World’s Leading Services CPQ, helps enterprise companies build professional services quotes quickly and easily. We are ideal for teams who sell complex services but struggle with accuracy and timeliness.
Leveraging a true guided selling experience from your CRM, WorkRails streamlines the selling of packaged, bundled services and complex time and materials offerings. Pricing and SOWs are stored natively within a CRM Opportunity or Quote, complete with workflow approvals, if required.
WorkRails makes it easy for anyone to sell or buy services.
More than 40,000 Professional Services quotes have been configured with WorkRails’ Services CPQ. WorkRails customers have cut service quote creation time from weeks to hours, reducing overall sales cycle times, increasing product adoption and lowering churn.
Interesting in learning more about WorkRails and how your company will benefit from the power of Services CPQ? Contact us for an introduction call and custom demo!