Quoting tools like VARStreet are great to streamline the entire sales process as they don’t only assist to make a great first impression with prospective customers, but also integrate well with all ERP, accounting, CRM and e-commerce software.

The first step towards establishing connect is to have a quotation tool that automates mundane tasks and eliminates room for error by also saving a history of the sales process and the quotes sent to individual clients.

Want to get a great sales quote tool to improve online sales? Go in for an IT quoting software to make things much easier. 

Choosing the right quoting software is a task but the good news is, there are tools to improving quote creation.

VARStreet uses IT quoting software that makes it a great choice for resellers. The entire sales cycle requires excellent and swift communication with a personalized approach.

Besides various factors such as pricing, product and service quality, marketing and branding, here are some great features that should be present in a quoting too.

1. Quoting Automation

Automating the process with online quoting tools means that any quote delivered will include a timestamp and detailed explanation of what is included.

Quoting automation accomplishes this and other things. Automated proposal delivery provides consistent, high-quality proposals with detailed discovery findings, options considered, justification documentation, user references and itemized pricing quoted to the customer.

2. CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is about managing all company relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is to improve business relationships. CRM systems help companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

Gartner predicts that by 2021, CRM will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. All the more reason why the business quotation software must include CRM while improving quote creation.

3. Sales Pipeline Reporting

Sales quote tools must include sales pipeline reporting to understand their customers better. It is essentially a set of stages that resellers move through as they progress from one customer to another.

The four stages to include in IT quoting software are:

1. Qualification– Seek information from resellers whether they have the requirement, budget and authority to buy products from dealers and their limitations.
2. Meeting– After receiving communication from resellers, the next step is for the sales team to hold meetings and understand what products would best suit resellers’ needs.
3. Proposal– Using IT quoting software which can be accessed on mobile quoting apps too, the sales team then puts forward a quote on what will be provided, at what cost and the time frame for products given.
4. Closing– After negotiations, final contracts are made and deals signed which makes prospective resellers now officially customers.

4. Billing Automation

Manual processing means touching the data more often, which increases the likelihood of making mistakes. Hence include billing automation in web quoting tools to speed up delivery of invoices without having to lift a finger, based on the system created. Processing orders manually on an average takes 5 times longer than an automation process.

Billing automation helps to keep track of payments, identify customers who are late on their payments and schedule reminder emails to be sent automatically through the system incorporated into the business quotation software.

5. Product Catalog and Pricing

Buyers have products in mind before contacting resellers. However, innovation is the name of the game which means product upgrades always happen. Include upgraded models of product lists and pricing in the quotation tool to give your customers an idea of newer products to consider, apart from the one they enquired about.

This gives an idea of what the company deals with, their interest in giving customers their money’s worth for products which are better versions of what they initially considered. This also helps to build an association with customers by improving quote creation.

6. Make It Highly Customizable

Though there are several web quoting tools available, VARStreet customizes quote templates to the company’s requirements. Each company has different ways of working, different customer requirements, approval workflows, etc.

VARStreet understands this and hence our quoting software is highly customizable.

7. Wide Range of Integrations

Customizing quotation tools to suit a company’s basic functioning will make it easier for the dealer. Allow integration with various features and aspects relevant to the sales quotation.

Integrations with freight companies make it easier to auto-calculate shipping charges based on the weight or dimensions of a product. Tax integrations are useful in calculating tax based on geographies and currencies.

Integration with accounting, ERP or CRM software gives a unified approach to all the business processes.

This helps to make the web quoting tool more flexible in it’s working .

8. Questionnaires for Streamlined Proposal Process

Starting from scratch can be a task for the sales team, which has to prepare a quote based on each client’s requirements. Understand what the sales team requires when they structure a quote.

Include this in the online quoting tool for a better understanding of how to prepare a customized quote based on client requirements. A questionnaire helps to make the process easier for the sales team.

9. Tracking and Analytics

Work is being done, quotes are being prepared and business is growing. Is that enough? Track quotes, the progress, contracts and do analytics on projects. It helps to understand what is working when sales are going up and what is not when sales are dipping.

Something can be reworked in the sales quote tool when there is a scenario to analyse and rectify a quote gone wrong.

10. Invite and Manage Users

The sales team works on the web quoting tool and team members change sometimes. Also, there are members from other teams who need to be in the loop on the same quote. Add a feature in the business quotation software and mobile quoting app where members can be invited and added, like for instance, the features in Google Drive.

IT quoting software allows dealers to spend more time on customers and less time on paperwork and proposals. Simplify the process, streamline the system and the quoting process can be made fast, smooth and flawless.

The post Must-Have Features In A Great Quoting Tool appeared first on VAR Sales Management Blog: News, Tips & Many More By VARStreet.