Business has changed in countless ways over the last few years, especially in regards to the ways customers interact with companies. The saying has always been that the customer is always right, and while that is still the sentiment, technology has allowed customers to become empowered.

The way customers shop and interact has become more based upon convenience due to access to new technologies. In years past, manufacturers relied upon ads, word-of-mouth, or promotions to attract customers to their products. They would come to the show room and see what your company had to offer. Customers had little to no peer-reviews and just had to keep their fingers crossed that what the company offered ended up as promised. Now, customers can rely on online reviews. They can also shop from anywhere using their phones.

This shift in the way people shop requires manufacturers to authorize customers to independently configure, price, and quote custom manufacturing products with numerous variants at their convenience.

How can you empower customers to do this?

Because customers come to you looking for both quality and variability, they would previously need to speak directly with your sales or engineering teams. Without technology guiding the process, it led at times to costly misconfigurations and error-filled quotes, which in turn, made your customer think twice about your product and your business.

Now with a Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) tool, quotes and configurations are delivered accurately and quickly…but that still doesn’t meet the customers’ desire to shop and price on their own time. Today’s customers want the freedom to configure independently while still having access to sales team members when they are needed. In this sense, the relationship between customer and sales team is based upon trust and loyalty.

The fact of the matter is that customers want to do everything fast, but things must be done accurately. There is no room for error because mistakes lead not only to a bad quote, but often to the loss of a customer. And with the amount of industry competition, second chances can be fleeting.

Excel sheets and manually updated databases cause manufacturers to struggle with product variance. The information is scattered, at times incorrect, which of course, leads to bad configurations and unhappy customers. This is why CPQ, especially when connected with your company’s existing CRM, ERP, and other business-critical systems, will enhance your customers’ buying experience by providing real-time accuracy on their own terms.

CPQ allows customers to save time while searching for and configuring products. CPQ’s self-service abilities offer customers the capability to create configurations and even visualizations of their products without any assistance from your sales team. Similar to buying a new pair of shoes online, customers want to use eCommerce for all of their buying experiences, despite how complex their purchases may be.  Using CPQ to enable your eCommerce offers customers impressive visuals that are accurate down to the smallest detail.

While this sounds like a blow to your sales team, empowering customers to make choices on their own saves your sales team time. They don’t have to guess at what a customer wants, and deals can close faster, allowing for quicker interactions with more customers.

All of this is made possible through CPQ’s feature of “Guided Selling”.

Guided Selling gives novice sales team members and customers the knowledge and experience of a seasoned sales executive. The software creates an interactive dialogue to prompt customers about their product wants and needs in order to find a solution that is accurately configured and meets customer needs. The Guided Selling feature actually goes beyond what your top sales team members can do when connected to your ERP system. It can offer customers available materials and likely timelines utilizing the data of inventory and supply chains.

If you ever use Amazon to shop, you know that the site often recommends a product or two that goes along with the one you are currently considering. Then, once you have added something into your shopping cart, the site offers other things it thinks, thanks to algorithms, you might be interested in. Utilizing CPQ and Guided Selling generates a personalized experience to do the same thing; it suggests optimal products, features and options that customers didn’t know they needed or wanted.

With this additional knowledge, customers are empowered to explore these choices and consider how they may benefit from them.  This clears pathways for customers to get the most out of the overall buying experience.  And the good news for your team?  Technical knowledge isn’t required in order to use Guided Selling, making it easy for anyone to use.

Customer expectations have changed, and what they want is an experience that allows for them to feel like they are more in control. It also permits them to be able to do things on their own time. Empowering customers with self-service via CPQ and Guided Selling the first step towards giving customers the buying experience they want, and propelling your business to the next level.

Sound too good to be true? Reach out to the experts at Godlan to hear how CPQ can help your company reach new levels. Call us at (586) 464.4400 or visit www.Godlan.com.