Quotation software expedites the sales process of an enterprise. When integrated with a CRM, the Quoting app creates a deeper impact on the business as compared to functioning alone.

A CRM and an online Quoting App complement each other. Let’s understand their individual functionalities to get a better insight into their integration.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a centralized system to store the relationship management information of the clients and the prospects. This information is used by different departments of an enterprise to connect with current and potential customers. The entire team working for a company is on the same page about every client with the use of CRM.

It is one of the biggest markets in the world and the growth isn’t slowing down. In fact, according to superoffice.com, the CRM software market is now expected to reach a revenue of more than $80 billion by 2025.

A quoting application streamlines the process of preparing, sending and tracking sales quotations to existing or potential clients.  It takes care of the required supporting documents and gives the proposal a very professional look.

The improved process gives rise to sales productivity. Axonom.com says a quoting application increases the quote productivity by 33%

1. Made for Each Other

The online quoting system and CRM make a great pair. To track your sales process and to prioritize the clients, this integration is very helpful. The customer information flows from CRM and the quotation is created with the quoting software. What is important here that the communication prior to sending quotations, customer’s history, etc. is also taken into account to improve your proposal quote. You can track the real-time status of the quotation.

Once you win the deal and the order is placed, the next step is billing the client for your product and services. In businesses of any size, mostly, there are separate people or agencies who handle sales, customer service and accounting.

CRM integration with the quoting software creates a smooth system from lead generation to sending a quote to final sale to billing.

Each step is well informed about the preceding and succeeding steps of the process.

The efficiency of an online quoting system shoots up after integration with CRM.

The integration results in zero mismatch between the offered and billed prices and no disconnect in communication.

The CRM and quoting app integration creates a wide spectrum of benefits, some of which are:-

• Shorter Sales Cycle
• Larger Deal size
• Lower Error Margins
• Cost Reduction
• Insightful Reporting
• Centralized Data
• Increased Customer Satisfaction

2. Single Sign-On

A significant feature of CRM integration with the quoting app is the single sign-on.  It is simple and easy to have one login for both the applications. Single sign-on reduces the IT cost, it increases the utility of both the applications for the employees.

When you integrate the two important systems of customer relations and quotations in your business, it is beneficial to have a single sign-on for the convenience of your workforce. Having said that, it is equally important to maintain compliance and security standards for the related software. Analyze well before authorizing who needs access to what.

3. Ease of Sales

Research says that sales reps spend only one-third of their time selling. This means a majority of their productive time goes into generating leads and administrative work. CRM and quoting app integration is a step towards the ease of selling so that the sales reps can spend most of their time winning deals.

The Aberdeen report says, integration of quoting software results in 49% of annual improvement in meeting targets. Why is it so?

The integration of a quoting software with a CRM application gives better visibility of information to the sales team as the entire customer data, both current and the prospect is centralized.

It gives a better view of the pipeline while preparing the proposal for a client. At every step on the path of sales, the communication of the salesperson with the customers remains consistent due to the transparency of information.

Also, there is a hidden benefit of the increase in sales when the salesperson goes through the CRM and finds new leads as the data of prospective customers is also stored in the same system.

Do you know that prospecting is claimed to be the most difficult of all the jobs of a sales rep? CRM-quoting app integration solves that problem too!

According to statistics, it is observed that there is 82% greater competency at increasing sales productivity with integrated technologies. As the integration between CRM and an online quoting app enhances the reach of “same” data to multiple departments, it brings the ease of reporting too.

During the process of closing the deal or after that, there are a number of occasions that a sales rep needs to coordinate with other departments like procurement, accounts, etc. Imagine the salesperson, sharing spreadsheets and documents with the customer data every time to a different person. Such a tedious and unproductive task.

Hence, a system with automation and centralization is needed to achieve better sales productivity.

4. The Magic of Centralization

When we say that centralized data can resolve a lot of recurring problems in your workplace, we mean it.

For small, medium and big enterprises, data centralization reduces time, effort and cost. It increases the efficiency of the workforce.

In this article, we talk about centralized customer information and centralized catalog that we get due to CRM and quoting app integration.

Centralized customer information benefits the working of all the departments in a company. From generating lead to billing the same customer this information is needed multiple times by different people.

The beauty of this integration is that the same set of information is shared across the workplace and can be pulled out by an authorized person of any department, anytime.

No wasting time asking for details and waiting for emails.

A centralized catalog is extremely beneficial for the sales team. The salesperson can view configurations, packages, and prices all in one place. It saves time and reduces the chances of errors in the calculation of pricing when multiple products or services are into consideration.

CRM integration brings more automation to the centralized catalog which is a feature of the quoting app.

Final Words

Two good systems when combined together form a strong foundation stone for a company. This is exactly what a CRM does with the quoting app when integrated together. We are living in a time when automation is a part and parcel of our lives. How to use it for our benefit is on our wisdom. CRM integration increases the effectiveness of a quoting application in more than one ways. A more efficient quoting system means more sales and more sales means more revenue. Go for it!

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