When it comes to working with clients, do not underestimate the importance of your quote. Your quote is the initial commitment you make with your future-to-be client about the deliverables you promised, and providing them with a comprehensive quote is paramount to ensuring the success of your relationship.
In reality, though, the problem faced by many organizations is that developing a quote is both time-consuming and laborious. In fact, many organizations suffer from a disconnection between the team that is producing the deliverables and the team that is promising the quote. This disconnection between internal teams causes inefficiencies.
Meet Karina, ‘’The Account Executive.’’
Karina is an Account Executive who works for an up-and-coming Web Development Firm. She just spent an hour with Stacey, her soon-to-be client, discussing all the extra add-ons she wants on her website. Karina promises the world to Stacey, and Stacey leaves her office feeling confident that Karina will provide her with a comprehensive and accurate quote that includes all the promises Karina just made. The only issue is that Karina doesn’t have the right software needed to generate an instant quote, so instead, she uses a spreadsheet to outline all the items she just promised Stacey. Karina spends a few hours outlining the project, and when she is done, she sends it over to David, the web developer assigned to develop Stacey’s website. Unfortunately, since Karina has no idea what David is actually doing, her outline is unrealistic, and David has to go back and recreate the quote and timeline based on realistic outcomes and timeframes. If Karina had the tools she needed in the first place, she would have been able to avoid throwing the project over the fence to David, and she would have had the insight necessary to set realistic expectations with her clients.
Imagine what Karina’s life would be like if she was able to easily convert sales promises into live project plans with a single click? You know, if she was able to hand off the project to David immediately instead of throwing it over the fence and hoping it goes well?
If she was able to stop wasting her time producing disconnected quotes, she would be able to increase sales efficiency and streamline her project process. To help her get there, Karina needs a dynamic system that connects with David’s sales and delivery cycle and allows her to easily generate sophisticated, consistent and accurate quotes.
Like Karina, many organizations spend their time throwing their quotes over the fence and wasting their time. Adopting a sales that includes the quote at the beginning of the project-planning phase allows you to set milestones, budgets, durations and dependencies of the project, and allows for a natural hand-off with your team. You can break down the barriers between the sales team and the project team and have a consistent, automated system. In addition, you can automatically adjust project pricing, timetables or dependencies when unexpected client requests come through. Before you adopt a new sales, make sure that the software you are looking at has both a quote-to-project feature as well as a sales feature. This will make it easier for your sales team to instantly transform a sale into a project and will give your team complete access and visibility.
Eliminate the headache of producing a time-consuming disconnected quote, and redefine your customer relationship management software by adopting a system that allows you to easily convert quotes into a project for your customers.
