CPQ (Configure Price Quote) software adoption is growing rapidly. If your company is considering ways to deliver sales quotes faster and more accurately, then you are likely looking at CPQ software as a solution. But if your businesses has not yet implemented CPQ software (or even if it has), you may have questions about how to choose the right solution. What should be included? What's essential? We're here to help you cut through the noise and confusion by identifying several must-haves for your CPQ initiative.

You can use this blog post as a check list as you evaluate your CPQ options. 

1.  Point and Click

Your CPQ app should be simple and easy to use. No matter how amazing the app is, if it's hard to learn and confusing to use, then sales reps will not use it. Check to see if the CPQ app you are considering will enable a sales rep to build a quote quickly using a simple point and click interface. Of course, some quotes may require more robust configuration beyond just point and click (and your CPQ app should enable you to do this too), but for simple quotes, the app should allow you to simply click the options you would like to add the the quote, and the software should do the heavy lifting of managing pricing, discounting and underlying configurations. This greatly simplifies configuration and quoting, creating quotes that are always accurate, and it saves the sales team a great deal of time. 

2.  Scalable

As your business grows, the CPQ software must be able to easily scale with your business. When you decide to add new reps to your sales team, they should be able to easily select and configure the right products, price them correctly, and get quotes out the door quickly. As your business adds new products and services, you want to easily add these to the product and price lists and ensure that all your reps are quoting them accurately and quickly. And you should be able to make these changes easily, without custom coding. Future growth and scalability should be considered when evaluating CPQ software.

3.  Mobile and Native

Using CPQ that is built native on the Salesforce platform ensures that CPQ features will be right in the workflow of your sales team. And if your reps are equipped with smart phones and tablets (and who isn't?), then CPQ software that is delivered on the Salesforce mobile app will ensure that they can generate quotes right from their mobile devices. They can be selling from anywhere at any time closing deals and generating revenue! 

4.  Simple Renewals

If you sell renewable services or subscriptions, then the time will come when your customer's contract is almost up. Perhaps they have added more products or services during their initial contract term. Perhaps your pricing has changed or there are new bundles to consider in the renewal. It all gets very complicated and money can easily be left on the table during the renewal. Your CPQ software should be smart enough to automatically create a renewal opportunity, add it to your sales pipeline and generate the supporting documents to make the renewal accurate and painless for both your sales rep and your customer.  

These 4 must-haves should help you avoid making a costly mistake when evaluating CPQ software for your company. To see how CPQ can help you generate accurate quotes quickly, view a demo of Salesforce CPQ.