Professional Services Industry includes software services, training, certification industry, etc. The majority of sales processes in this business are similar to the normal Sales process of a CRM platform. In terms of product structure and rules, the products and services sold are not overly complicated. Every company, on the other hand, has its method of pricing and offering discounts to clients.
Through configuration and customization options, Salesforce CPQ provides a solution to satisfy the pricing calculation demands. The sales cycle for professional services concludes with the formation of a project to track the actions related to the services sold to the customer. Salesforce CPQ can help with this as well.
CPQ provides the following key benefits:
Improved Quote Accuracy –
Reduce data mismatch between quotes and projects –
Streamline Quote Revisions –
The following is an example of a general use case from lead to quote to project:
Unlike regular Salesforce objects, you can create custom Salesforce objects. Custom objects are those that are generated by platform users to meet their specific needs. Though there are several objects already built into the platform of Salesforce CRM, they can’t cater to all the needs of every single organization. To circumvent this barrier, Salesforce has the option of custom objects, which allows customers to construct Salesforce objects that are unique to their business and serve specific functions.
A courier company, for example, could develop a custom object to hold each week’s schedule and shipment details. As a result, these objects store data that is specific to the company. Custom fields can be added to custom objects in addition to the normal Salesforce fields.
- Sales Rep captures the lead in the CRM system (SFDC), converts it to opportunity after qualification, and gathers enough details for conversion.
- Sales Rep creates a quote in CPQ.
- Added needed products and services for the customer. Job roles and activities get added by the system for the services and allow Sales Rep to enter effort details.
- The price is computed using many parameters defined in the system, such as the customer rate card, efforts, shifts, and so on. Discounts are applied based on the settings in CPQ for Customer, Region, and so on.
- The Sales Manager is notified when a quote and pricing need to be approved based on the overall quote value or discounts. The sales manager gives his approval depending on profit margins.
- Sales Rep generates a proposal document and submits it physically or digitally to the customer.
- The contract is signed by both parties. For the creation of the project, a quote has been submitted.
- A project is created in the system. Details of activities, job roles, duration of the activity, etc. flow from Quote to projects.
- The project's system manages and tracks the project's schedule, activities, and resource allocation to completion.
The procedure for revisions and change requests is as follows:
- Once the subscription/assets are sold to the customer, the project data is synced back into CPQ.
- For a Change Request (CR), the Sales Representative picks the current project, updates it, and configures a quote in CPQ. The rep selects a quotation for the existing project and launches a revision quote in the Amendment case. After then, it goes through the stages 3 through 9 listed above
CPQ can also assist in all aspects of a project, including:
- Project Scope : Product architectures, product, sales, and delivery procedures, as well as integrations
- Project Plan : Implementation steps & plan. What is included and when?
- Analysis and Building : Building is an iterative process. The provider may create the initial models, and subsequently, the consumer participates.. The agile method allows you to construct and specify parallel systems.
- Testing & Deployment : Last-minute check and thorough testing help incorrect functionality.
- Maintenance : Maintaining the processes and product change. Support with customer experts.