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What is Quote Management?
4 min read
In the world of B2B sales, delivering timely and accurate quotes can mean the difference between closing the deal and losing business to a competitor. But it's easier said than done.
Sales quotes contain detailed information about a proposed sale—including products, prices, discounts, payment terms, delivery schedules, warranties, and more—and they can be highly complex. To complicate matters further, large organizations often deal with a massive volume of quotes, so keeping track of all those details can be daunting.
An effective quote management strategy can help to streamline the sales process, so sales reps can close more deals, faster. Quote management is also critical to delivering a high-quality customer experience and keeping your organization ahead of the competition. In this article, we'll explore the fundamentals of quote management and how effective quote management can improve business outcomes.
What is quote management?
Quote management refers to the process of generating, delivering, tracking, and managing the sales quotes that a business provides to its customers. Depending on how your sales process is structured, this may include:
- Configuring quote templates
- Creating quotes and proposals
- Applying appropriate price and discount guidelines
- Sending sales quotes to prospective customers
- Following up on outstanding quotes
- Managing approvals and revisions
- Tracking the status of individual deals
- Negotiating price, delivery, and payment terms
Clearly, quote management is a vital part of the selling process. When executed effectively, quote management can help the sales team to provide accurate and compliant quotes, shorten the sales cycle, and ultimately win more business.
Benefits of quote management software
Quote management can be handled manually, but many companies rely on quote management software to help sales reps better manage the quoting process. Quote management software can streamline, simplify, and standardize quote management with features like:
- Price lists
- Product catalogs
- Customer databases
- Customizable quote templates
- Automated workflows
- Quote tracking tools
- Alerts and notifications
Quote management software is a valuable business tool that offers many benefits over manual quote management. Some of the key benefits include:
- Speed: With quote management software, sales reps can deliver quotes faster, leading to more closed-won business.
- Efficiency: Quote management software helps to optimize the quoting process, making it more efficient from start to finish.
- Consistency: Using quote management software ensures that all sales reps follow the same process for creating and managing sales quotes.
- Unified data: A quote management tool can consolidate customer, product, and pricing data in a single, central location so it's easier to access when needed.
- Accuracy: Quote management software ensures that all quotes are based on the same pricing rules and product information, reducing the opportunity for human error.
- Visibility: Sophisticated quote management tools include reporting and analytics capabilities, providing insight into deal status, sales pipeline, and any delays in the quoting process.
- Customer satisfaction: Slow and inaccurate quotes are among the biggest barriers to a positive customer experience. Quote management software helps to eliminate these problems.
Automating the quoting process
In the absence of quote management software, each sales quote can require hours of manual effort across many departments like sales, fulfillment accounting, and more. And after all that work, there's still no guarantee that the quote will be delivered quickly and free of errors.
Quote management software lets you streamline and automate the quoting process, automatically generating quotes that can be tailored to each customer's unique requirements. Advanced quote management tools are designed to integrate with other business software, including CRM, ERP, and accounting systems, creating a seamless flow between quoting and other core business processes.
A quote management system frees up valuable time so your sales team can do what they do best: sell. It can also dramatically improve efficiency, accuracy, and customer satisfaction—so sales reps can close more deals, faster.
Quote management system features
There are many quote management software products available on the marketing today, but all solutions are not created equal. Any quote management tool should include core functionality to create detailed sales quotes, deliver them to prospective customers, and track their status over time. More sophisticated quote management software should also provide advanced features like:
- Customizable quote templates. Templates are key to streamlining the quoting process, but they shouldn't limit your ability to generate complex, personalized quotes for each customer. You also need the flexibility to include company branding and other critical elements in your quote templates.
- Automated workflows. The best quote management software lets you build custom workflows that automate the quoting process and simplify complex sales pipelines. This lets you standardize the quoting process and ensure that every team member follows the same steps, every time.
- Detailed reporting and analytics. Quote management software can often provide detailed analytics on quote activity, so you can track which quotes have been delivered, viewed, accepted, or rejected. Some tools can also generate reports on quote activity, deal status, conversion rates, and more—a valuable asset for tracking performance over time.
- Seamless integration. Many quote management solutions integrate with other business tools like your CRM, ERP, inventory systems, and accounting platforms. This connection is critical to ensure accurate sales forecasting and performance reports.
CPQ vs. quote management
Quote management software is closely related to another common business solution: CPQ (configure, price, and quote). But while both tools allow companies to streamline and automate the quoting process, they are not the same.
CPQ software is focused on accurate product configuration and pricing based on predetermined rules, with quote management to optimize the overall workflow. CPQ is typically used by companies with complex product offerings and those that require a high degree of customization in their sales quotes.
A CPQ solution (like Conga CPQ) is purpose built to handle complex product configurations and pricing models, including:
- Nested product bundles
- Rule-based configurations
- Product/service combinations
- Subscription pricing
- Tiered pricing
- Formula-based pricing
- Discounts and promotions
Quote management software, on the other hand, is designed to help sales teams manage the quote process from start to finish. It is typically used by businesses that sell simpler products requiring less quote customization.
Quote management tools often include additional functionality like version control, collaboration, and approval workflows.
With an advanced CPQ system like Conga CPQ, you can do it all: product configurations, complex pricing, quote generation, quote management, collaboration, approval workflows, proposal tracking, and more. And Conga CPQ integrates seamlessly with other Conga solutions—including document generation, eSignature, and CLM—so you can streamline commercial operations from end to end.
Download The ultimate guide to configure, price, and quote (CPQ) tools to learn more about how CPQ can help streamline quote management.
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