A streamlined and efficient sales process is the backbone for the survival of any organization. To turn a prospect into a customer, it is imperative that all departments work in tandem with enhanced visibility between sales, legal, and service teams.
With rising customer expectations, time to quote is a deciding factor in closing a deal. Amidst such challenges, Quote to Cash can be a game-changer to increase lead conversion, save manual hours and realize revenue faster.
A robust Quote to Cash can automate tedious and time-consuming repetitive tasks involved in quote generation, such as billing and invoicing. It can bring efficiency among teams, allowing more time for creative work and services.
On the other hand, a broken quote to cash process can be counter-productive.
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Why should you upgrade the quote to cash?
A faulty or outdated quote to the cash process can blur the visibility between the sales and finance teams. It hampers the customer experience and, in the worst scenarios, drifts them away to your competitors.
An up-to-date quote to cash helps in:
- Precise alignment from proposal to revenue realization
- Minimal errors in quotes and billing
- Automation and transparency leading to time-saving
- Productive customer service and happier customers
That being said, how to identify if its’ time to upgrade quote to cash ? These hints help.
Hint #1: Identification of specific configurations
Product and services have become immensely complex as the customer demand has inclined towards more sophisticated products.
To make it a winning deal, salespeople must identify the specific configurations based on the previous transactions to add value. It eliminates the need to configure the product and enhance the quoting.
An automated configuration system must help the sales reps be configuration experts when dealing with customers’ expectations about the product and services.
One of the rules to create a quote is to offer the best price deal that can make the customers accept it happily by including the incentives and retaining your margin.
Your existing quote to cash must capture and store the history of winning pricing strategies for future deals, increase the success rate and maximize the size of the contract.
Hint #2: Identification of erratic quotes
After an initial assessment of the customer’s needs, your sales rep must present an accurate quote which the customer must accept with not much pondering.
An erratic and delayed quote can push away the customer. An up-to-date quote-to-cash helps identify erratic quotes and empowers your rep to present an error-free one resulting in a successful deal at a go.
Hint #3: Inspecting the contract created
A signed contract is the backbone of the deal and plays a crucial role in future transactions. The existing quote to cash should correctly capture the details to create an error-free quote on the first go.
Inspect if the built-in clauses in the contract, including renewal and termination, are visible to the right group of people to ensure the security of the deal for both parties.
Hint #4: Retrospection and customer feedback
Another hint that alerts the need to update the existing QTC is identifying the contracts that need an automatic signature. At this stage, you must also perform a retrospection of the contracts or look at the feedback from concerned stakeholders.
Effective execution can be a challenge for many organizations because effective execution can expedite the dealing. An automated eSignature or digital signature can save the time spent on manual signing the final version of the contract. The contract finally signed must allow a speedy execution at the project management level.
Automated Quote to Cash can be a game-changer
A delay in quote creation of an inaccurate quote can be a deal-breaker. An updated CPQ:
suggests the sales rep or the user with the products they are searching for through a series of interactive questions thus increasing the efficiency of the quoting process.
- Emails the quote through integration using the email client once you approve the proposal.
- Eases centralized storage of proposals and documents with ease and regulated access.
- Helps to convert opportunities into live projects since the needed information is accessible at a single click.
- Pre-populates timesheets for accurate and easy time tracking and ensures timely and error-free billing.
- Sends automated emails to your teams about the workflows and helps the management assign tasks seamlessly.
- Automates invoices and does not demand additional resources for invoicing, saving time and manual hours.
- Syncs Accounts Receivable records with the accounting software, thus updates your financial trackers automatically and quickly.
Automated quote to cash can help salespeople to create quotes faster, more accurately, and on time.
Need a Quote to Cash upgrade? Reach us at hello@cloudely.com.
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