Apparound CPQ - HubSpot CRM: the benefits of the integration

Introduction

A Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) software is a powerful sales tool that automates and streamlines the entire quoting process for complex products and services. With a CPQ solution integrated into your HubSpot CRM, sales reps can quickly generate accurate quotes, analyze pricing options, and accelerate deal closure. The key benefits of CPQ software include:

• Increased sales productivity - CPQ eliminates tedious manual work so reps can spend more time selling. Guided selling steps simplify the quoting process.

• Faster, accurate quotes - CPQ pulls in pricing, products, options, and rules to instantly generate quotes with no errors. This improves customer experience with quick turnaround.

• Flexible pricing - Model different pricing scenarios with CPQ. Apply discounts, volume pricing and promotions easily.

• Higher win rates - Get quotes out faster. CPQ equips sales reps with what they need to have better customer conversations and close more deals.

By integrating CPQ capabilities into your core HubSpot CRM, your sales team can optimize the entire quote-to-cash process. This results in increased efficiency, accelerated sales velocity, improved win rates and maximum revenue.

Challenges with Basic HubSpot Quote Builder

HubSpot's basic quote builder provides a simple way to generate quotes within the CRM. However, it has some key limitations:

• Not suitable for complex pricing models - The basic quote builder only supports simple pricing with minimal product options. It lacks the flexibility to handle complex pricing models like tiered pricing, bundles, upsells, and usage-based billing.

• Limited features - The basic quote tool lacks key capabilities like guided selling, customizable templates, version control, and advanced reporting. This makes it difficult to optimize and scale the quoting process.

• Limited customizations - The default quote templates provided by HubSpot may not fully align with your brand or specific business needs. While you can edit theme settings for these templates, creating truly customized templates requires a Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription.

• Error prone - Since the basic quote builder relies on manual data entry, it is prone to human errors. Miscalculations, outdated prices, and incorrect product configurations easily slip through. This leads to frustration, lost deals, and decreased buyer confidence.

• Complex Pricing Structures - If your business deals with intricate pricing models, the Basic HubSpot Quote Builder might struggle to handle them efficiently. Customizing line items and calculating complex totals can be challenging.

The basic HubSpot quote builder simply doesn't provide the advanced functionality many businesses need. Without a robust CPQ solution integrated into the CRM, sales teams struggle to efficiently produce accurate quotes at scale.

Benefits of Integrating CPQ with HubSpot

Integrating a CPQ solution with HubSpot CRM provides numerous benefits that can optimize your sales process and make it more efficient. Here are some of the key advantages:

Reduced Errors

The integration between Apparound CPQ and HubSpot CRM makes it possible to generate offers on qualified CRM-side leads and limit data entry errors related to customer master data that often cause the offer to be invalid and block service activation and order shipment.

Greater Visibility

With CPQ and CRM integrated, you gain better visibility into sales team performance and can easily identify areas that may need improvement. You can see which products less popular, which reps are top performers, and more. This allows you to pinpoint areas to focus coaching efforts and optimize processes.

Improved Customer Experience

Thanks to the integration, customers receive accurate quotes quickly and seamlessly. Being able to respond promptly to prospects with customized quotes enhances the customer experience and accelerates revenue. Customers receive a more professional buying experience.

Customizable Quotes

HubSpot’s quotes tool, built atop the CRM platform, enables your team to create customized quotes effortlessly. Robust templates and eSignature capabilities enhance the overall experience, allowing prospects to make quick purchase decisions.

In summary, integrating CPQ with HubSpot enhances accuracy, efficiency, and customer experience throughout the quoting and proposal stages of your sales cycle.

When to Consider CPQ and HubSpot Integration

If you're looking for ways to optimize and streamline your sales process, integrating a CPQ solution with HubSpot CRM is worth considering. There are a few key indicators that your business could benefit from CPQ and HubSpot integration.

Large Sales Teams

If your company has a large sales team, a CPQ solution can help save time and ensure data accuracy by automating the quoting process. This takes the busywork out of creating quotes for each deal.

With CPQ software, large sales teams can scale quoting efficiently. The sales operations team can set up pricing rules just once in the CPQ, and every rep can leverage them for each deal. This creates consistent quoting across the organization.

High Volume of Quotes

If your sales team generates a large number of quotes regularly, CPQ streamlines the process. Automated calculations, standardized templates, and quick approvals save time and improve efficiency.

Complex Products

If your company sells complex, configurable products, a CPQ is very useful for optimizing the quoting process. The CPQ makes it easy for reps to quickly build quotes with all the right components, options, and quantities for the customer.

Rather than building quotes from scratch each time, reps can select from pre-built bundles and configurations. The pricing automatically adjusts based on the options selected. This saves massive amounts of time compared to manually configuring complex products.

CPQ integration can simplify the quoting process. It ensures accurate pricing and minimizes errors when creating quotes for complex products.

Complex Pricing Models

Companies with complex pricing - such as tiered pricing, upsells, bundles, and add-ons - can benefit greatly from CPQ. Rather than having to calculate pricing manually, the CPQ software can automatically apply complex pricing rules and discounts.

The CPQ ensures accurate pricing every time, taking into account all factors like customer segment, order volume, and special promotions. This eliminates pricing mistakes that could cost the company money. The CPQ also allows reps to easily compare pricing scenarios to provide the optimal deal.

E-Commerce and B2B Online Sales: If your business operates an e-commerce platform or relies on online sales, integrating CPQ with HubSpot ensures consistency across channels. Customers receive the same pricing and product information whether they interact with your team directly or through your website.

Efficient Quoting for Services: CPQ isn’t limited to physical products. If your business offers services, such as consulting, software development, or project-based work, CPQ tools can handle service-based quotes effectively.

Manage opportunities

The integration between CRM and CPQ streamlines the management of sales opportunities. With CRM you track customer interactions, while CPQ allows you to set up accurate quotes. The synergistic interaction between the two systems facilitates the work of the sales team, reducing errors and providing management with real-time data for better strategic planning.

Key CPQ Capabilities to Look For

When evaluating a CPQ solution to integrate with HubSpot CRM, there are several key capabilities to look for.

Required Features

Make sure the CPQ solution has all the functionality you need to optimize your sales process. This includes guided selling, product catalogue, customizable pricing models, document generation, contract management, e-signature, and more. Select a solution that will support your unique sales workflows.

Ease of Setup

CPQ implementation can take weeks to months, so choose a solution that is quick and easy to configure. Look for seamless HubSpot integration and minimal training requirements. Avoid CPQ tools that are complex and time-consuming to deploy.

Customization

Pick a CPQ platform that enables customization out-of-the-box. Your sales team should be able to tailor pricing models, product catalogue, documents, and other components without relying on developer resources.

Smart Deal Management

Efficiently manage deals by automating validation, approval, and booking processes. Clear rules for approval management streamline interactions between sales reps and other teams

Pricing Flexibility

In flexible consumption models, pricing varies based on usage. CPQ tools must handle complex pricing structures, including discounts, margins, and tiered pricing

Ongoing Support

Your CPQ vendor should provide support during and after implementation. This ensures your team can successfully manage and utilize the software long-term.

Scalability

As your business grows, your CPQ platform should be able to scale with it. Make sure the solution can adapt as your processes, catalogue, and customer needs evolve over time.

Choosing the right CPQ to integrate with HubSpot CRM can optimize your sales process and improve efficiency. Keep these key capabilities in mind during your vendor evaluation.

Apparound CPQ Overview

Apparound is a configurable, scalable CPQ solution designed to integrate seamlessly with HubSpot CRM. It provides sales teams with key capabilities to optimize and automate the quoting and proposal process.

With Apparound CPQ, sales reps can quickly generate accurate quotes based on complex pricing rules and product configurations. Key benefits include:

• Guided Selling - Apparound's guided selling capability leads sales reps through the quoting process in a step-by-step workflow. This ensures proper product configuration and pricing for every quote.

• Central Product Catalog - Apparound centralizes product data and pricing logic in a single location, eliminating pricing errors caused by outdated price lists or sheets.

• Flexible Pricing Rules - Apparound supports volume discounts, tiered pricing, upsells/cross-sells, and complex pricing scenarios tailored to your unique business model.

• Document Generation - Quotes and proposals can be generated with professional branding with just a few clicks.

• Approval Workflows - Quote approval workflows ensure proper oversight and compliance before quotes reach customers.

• Analytics & Reporting - Gain visibility into quoting performance, product trends, sales rep efficiency and more with Apparound's robust reporting capabilities.

Apparound and HubSpot Integration

The integration between Apparound CPQ and HubSpot CRM provides a unified sales platform for managing the entire deal process. Key benefits include:

• Unified Platform: Sales reps can manage the entire deal within HubSpot, from initial lead through closed deal, without toggling between systems. Lead and contact data flows directly from HubSpot into Apparound quotes.

• Automated Quoting: Apparound's guided selling automates the quote generation process. Reps can quickly configure customizable quotes that accurately reflect pricing models.

• Contract Management: Once the quote is accepted, sales reps can generate contracts, obtain eSignatures, and store signed documents within HubSpot. No need for a separate contract lifecycle management system.

• Integration: HubSpot’s native integration with CPQ tools ensures seamless communication between sales and other departments. The CRM-powered CPQ system allows for better collaboration, accurate data tracking, and a holistic view of customer interactions.

With Apparound's CPQ software integrated into HubSpot CRM, sales teams eliminate manual processes and data silos. The unified workflow improves sales productivity, enhances visibility, and delivers a seamless customer experience. Sales operations also gains real-time insights into quote performance to inform pricing strategy.

Implementation Process

Implementing Apparound CPQ with HubSpot CRM takes careful planning and execution to ensure a smooth rollout. Here are key steps in the integration process:

• Map out data fields between HubSpot and Apparound to enable seamless data flow. Important fields to map include contacts, companies, deals, products, and quotes. The mapping is used to make the deployed connector work.

• Configure user roles and permissions in both systems. Control which users can access which features.

• Train sales team on generating quotes and contracts in Apparound that integrate with HubSpot deals.

• Develop a timeline for rolling out the integrated system across your sales organization. Gradually onboard more users over time.

Training

• Set up training sessions for sales teams on using Apparound and the new quoting workflow.

• Provide user guides as references after training.

• Have the Apparound Customer Success team offer onboarding assistance and answer questions.

• Monitor usage and feedback during rollout to see where more training may be needed.

• Conduct refresher training as you release new features and upgrades.

With proper training, your sales reps will become proficient generating quotes in Apparound integrated with HubSpot deals. This will maximize adoption and ROI.

Measuring Results

Once you've integrated Apparound CPQ with HubSpot CRM, it's important to track key metrics to understand the impact on your sales processes and teams. Here are some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) you should monitor:

• Quote turnaround time: How long does it take your team to generate quotes after receiving a lead or inquiry? The CPQ integration should decrease the time spent creating customized quotes.

• Quote accuracy: Does integrating CPQ reduce errors and revisions in your quotes? Track the number or percentage of quotes sent back for corrections.

• Quote win rate: Are you winning more deals with shorter sales cycles? Calculate your win rate for quotes created with integrated CPQ vs without it.

• Sales rep adoption: Monitor how frequently each rep uses the CPQ integration for quoting. Ensure they are leveraging it to benefit their productivity.

• Sales velocity: Measure the average number of days to progress leads through sales stages. The CPQ automation should accelerate your sales velocity.

• Align COQ with upstream and downstream process to create a seamless lead-to-cash cycle.

• Contract value: Is integration increasing the value of your average closed deals? Track mean contract value over time.

Apparound CPQ provides robust reporting capabilities to extract key metrics across your quote and order processes. You can analyze quote accuracy, turnaround time, product configurations, pricing, and approvals. These insights help you identify areas for improvement to optimize your sales operations. The integration with HubSpot delivers this CPQ data directly into your CRM analytics.

Conclusion

Integrating a CPQ solution with HubSpot CRM can help streamline and optimize your sales process. By automating quote generation and providing guided selling tools, a CPQ eliminates manual errors and ensures sales reps provide accurate pricing. This results in a more efficient sales team and improved customer experience.

When evaluating CPQ software, be sure to select a solution that offers the specific capabilities you need, integrates smoothly with HubSpot, and provides ongoing support. Focus on finding a CPQ that is customizable, scalable, and easy to implement. With the right solution in place, you can reduce sales cycles, boost rep productivity, and gain better visibility into deal performance.

The key takeaways are:

• A CPQ automates quoting to minimize errors and speed up the sales process.

• Integration with HubSpot CRM centralizes data and enhances visibility.

• The right CPQ solution offers customizable features, seamless integration, and ongoing support.

• Implementing a CPQ can optimize your sales workflow and improve customer experience.

• Measure results like reduced cycle times and increased deal sizes to quantify the impact.

With an integrated CPQ, your sales team will be empowered to efficiently deliver quotes and close more deals. This ultimately translates into accelerated revenue growth and improved customer relationships.