When people hear the term CPQ—short for Configure, Price, Quote—they often think of industries centred around products and manufacturing. However, CPQ is also proving its value in professional services, especially for organisations seeking efficiency, accuracy, and speed in their sales processes. So, can CPQ be used for companies offering professional services? Absolutely! Let’s dive into how CPQ can serve the unique needs of professional service firms, enhancing their workflow and increasing revenue.
What is CPQ?
At its core, CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote. It’s a category of sales tools that aims to boost sales teams’ efficiency by automating and streamlining the quoting process.
Configure refers to setting up and organising price books containing different products or services, ensuring the sales team has all relevant options.
Price ensures that the correct prices are automatically calculated based on selected products or services. It also factors in discounts, quantities, and other pricing rules.
Quote is the final step, during which a clean, professional document, typically a PDF, is generated for the customer.
In essence, CPQ allows sales teams to move quickly from a customer’s inquiry to delivering an accurate quote, minimising errors and speeding up the sales cycle.
Salesforce CPQ stands out from other CPQ tools due to its deep native integration with the Salesforce CRM platform. This seamless connection allows sales teams to access real-time customer data, account information, and past interactions while building quotes, creating a more personalised and efficient quoting process.
Unlike other CPQ tools that require complex integrations with external CRM systems, Salesforce CPQ offers a unified experience where all customer and sales data exists in one ecosystem. This integration improves data accuracy and enhances sales productivity by automating workflows, syncing updates, and ensuring alignment across sales and operations.
Why Salesforce CPQ is Beneficial for Professional Services
Traditionally, CPQ tools have been associated with product sales, where hardware, software, or bundled packages are configured and priced. However, professional services such as consulting, legal services, or marketing can also effectively leverage CPQ tools.
The most significant advantage for professional services is the efficiency gained from automation. With Salesforce CPQ, all customer data—from account details to past interactions—is connected, enabling the sales team to deliver accurate and personalised quotes with minimal effort.
Imagine a consulting firm needing to generate a Scope of Work (SOW) that includes different consultants’ rates and time from various departments. Salesforce CPQ can streamline this process by automating hourly rate pricing and ensuring consistency across all quotes. It can also apply complex pricing rules, such as discounts or tax regulations, based on customer data, making it invaluable for service-based industries.
How CPQ Relates to Professional Services Automation (PSA)
While CPQ streamlines the sales process, Professional Services Automation (PSA) focuses on managing operations after closing the deal. PSA tools manage project delivery, time tracking, and revenue recognition, effectively allowing organisations to combine sales and operational activities on one platform.
When paired together, a seamless transition occurs from the sales cycle to project execution. For example, after a quote reaches a particular stage, automation can trigger in the PSA system, creating project records or resource forecasts without additional input from the sales team. This gives operational teams foresight into upcoming projects, improving their ability to efficiently plan resources and allocate time.
The Case for CPQ in Professional Services
CPQ is used for product-based organisations and is increasingly applied to professional services. Here are several vital ways CPQ benefits service-based firms:
Scope of Work (SOW) Generation: Salesforce CPQ helps generate detailed SOWs that reduce the time and cost for various consultants and business units. For example, a quote for a consulting project might automatically calculate expenses based on each consultant’s hourly rates, along with any applicable discounts or service packages.
Revenue and Resource Tracking: Many professional service firms’ critical goal is to track how much revenue each consultant and business unit generates. Salesforce CPQ integrates with your Salesforce CRM to automatically calculate and allocate revenue based on billable hours and project rates, ensuring that sales and operations teams have complete visibility into revenue streams and resource allocation.
Bundling and Discounting Services: In some cases, professional services firms may offer bundled services, such as strategy development, project execution, and training. CPQ allows firms to create packages of services, apply discounts where necessary, and automate pricing adjustments. This simplifies the process of building quotes and ensures consistency and accuracy across all deals.
Streamlined Sales Process: For firms that rely on a combination of products (software) and services, Salesforce CPQ ensures that everything from consulting hours to hardware is included in a single, unified quote. This is particularly helpful when services are sold alongside other offerings, like marketing software, and enables firms to present a holistic solution to the client.
Critical Considerations for Implementing CPQ in Professional Services
When implementing CPQ for professional services, there are several factors to consider to ensure its success:
Complexity of Pricing Models: Salesforce CPQ handles complex pricing models, including multiple service tiers, hourly rates, and bundled offerings. If your firm’s pricing is straightforward, you may only need part of the full capabilities of a CPQ system. However, your services involve various pricing tiers, multiple consultants, or different project structures. In that case, CPQ can save valuable time and reduce errors.
Automation and Customisation: Salesforce CPQ allows for the automation of complex workflows, such as automatically applying tax rules or including essential add-ons for a consulting engagement. This reduces the chance of missing key details and frees up your sales team to focus on closing deals.
Examples of CPQ in Action
Many organisations have successfully implemented CPQ to support their professional services business:
Consulting Firms: A marketing consulting company could use CPQ to quickly generate quotes that include hours x rate for various consulting services. When bundled with marketing automation software, CPQ can ensure consistency across all quotes and reduce the sales cycle time.
IT Services Providers: IT consultants may bundle hardware, software, and services into one offering. CPQ can automatically configure these quotes based on customer needs while applying applicable discounts or upsell opportunities based on past customer purchases.
Using Aspire CRM for Your Salesforce CPQ Implementation
At Aspire CRM, we specialise in helping professional services firms implement Salesforce CPQ solutions tailored to their unique needs. With our deep understanding of Salesforce and the complexities of service-based businesses, we work closely with you to customise CPQ for your pricing models, resource management, and project-based billing. Whether you’re offering hourly consulting, bundled services, or fixed-price contracts, we ensure that your CPQ system aligns perfectly with your business processes.
Partnering with us at Aspire CRM will streamline your quoting process, enhance pricing accuracy, and fully integrate Salesforce CPQ with other essential tools like PSA. We aim to help your sales team work more efficiently while delivering a seamless and consistent customer experience.
Conclusion
Incorporating Salesforce CPQ into a professional services environment offers tremendous benefits. It simplifies the configuration and pricing of complex service offerings, enhances operational efficiency, and ensures a seamless customer experience from the first inquiry to project delivery.
For professional services firms, CPQ is a valuable tool that can streamline their quoting process and unlock greater efficiency. This allows their team to focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional services and growing their business.
