While guided selling has cost-cutting benefits, many companies don’t realize that they could be leaving out key configuration options. Many companies can fall for the low cost of guided-selling systems (an initial benefit) but they have to pay the price later on for integration and maintenance. Companies can try to use quote-to-order to help consolidate, but it has an absence of important components that could cause pricing headaches in the future.
American Power Conversion (APC) was tasked with supporting the rollout of a new line of power systems. This may seem to be a simple product introduction, but as a $3.5-billion provider of power-protection and environmental control systems with comprehensive AC and DC power solutions designed for both home and corporate environments, completing this task was a serious undertaking.
How do you get sales reps and channel partners up to speed on new and existing products without wasting a lot of time and money?
Midsized companies face a dilemma, they have limited resources compared to bigger companies but they still need high-powered software to organize sales information to stay competitive. Pellerin Milnor was facing this problem in 2000.
The following progression of steps deliver the most value over time when it comes to re-architecting core processes in your company.
Integration is key to perfecting the perfect order.
Guided selling strategies are the Rodney Dangerfield of online strategies. Relegated to navigating catalogs, serving up price and availability for commoditized products, or cobbling together endless combinations of bundles, guided selling strategies don’t get the respect they deserve. By not taking advantage of all that guided selling strategies can do, companies leave piles of money [...]
Bottom line: Get passionate about the hard work of digging out where your guided selling system is showing your customers’ interests are going, and invest time to mine and analyze that data. Take failures of guided selling as a catalyst for figuring out what customers were attempting to accomplish yet the system didn’t allow it. Find that pain or problem and potential new markets could also be discovered
Guided selling in medical products manufacturing drastically reduces errors and increases profitability, and is essential for an industry highly dependent on order validation and precise definition to healthcare providers’ needs.
Complex selling of commercial insurance needs to focus on creating an exceptional and memorable experience for customers to gain their loyalty and trust over time. Geico gets it; they also accomplish all this and entertain too.
Earning trust by thoroughly understands customers’ expectations and then exceeding them is what best practices in guided selling can be. It is far beyond automating commodity transactions – it can be a catalyst for delivering service with heart.
Complex selling cycles are as long or longer than a basketball season. Anchoring the coordinated efforts of teams in shared values and treating time not with fear but with an opportunistic mindset makes all the difference. From the Maestro who delivers an excellent performance to Coach Wooden winning 10 NCAA National Championships, to the sales professionals who sell on value and orchestrate their teams to winning new business, all must be anchored in solid, strong values to succeed.
Guided selling is due for a breakout year due to these trends, some nascent and others quite visible, impact selling strategies across industries using them.
For those companies who have decided to excel at keeping commitments and earning trust, attaining best practices in guided selling and product configuration is the way to do it.
Guided selling systems can deliver the same and greater value to your prospects and customers across the entire product lifecycle than your best sales and service teams – and can help navigate them around major risk just like the guides do at Machu Picchu.
