Use Case

Leverage Digital Self-Service Quoting To Improve Efficiency

Why transitioning to digitalized sales processes enables B2B businesses to boost speed, accuracy, and agility.

Status Quo

The success of many businesses still depends heavily on quotes. These estimates can be requested or used to specify negotiated pricing, services, and other commercial or contractual terms. A manual quote or an RFQ typically takes days or weeks to prepare, with sales representatives often spending the majority of their time sourcing supplies, customizing solutions, waiting for authorization, and finally creating quotes.

Today, there is a growing need for speed, accuracy, and agility. In this increasingly competitive environment, conventional administrative tasks are consuming time that should be reserved for sales processes, maximizing value, and enhancing customer satisfaction. Implementing self-service digital quoting empowers customers to quickly and effectively request and update quotations or estimates.

Ultimately, switching to a digitalized sales process allows B2B customers to enjoy improved and convenient customer journeys that help them fulfill their goals.

Challenges Of Businesses Relying On Manual Quoting

  • Error-prone manual entries
  • Delayed online purchase adoption due to manual quoting
  • Slow and costly business growth
  • Difficulties managing seamless interaction between buying and selling sides
  • Trouble establishing self-service conversion of quotes into digital orders
  • Lack of data transparency and connection between ERP or CRM system quotes and the commerce and order management systems
  • Limiting complicated products that require quotes to offline sales.

How Does Digital Self-Service Quoting Work?

Spryker’s Quotation Offer & Offer Management feature enables B2B buyers to accelerate the purchase process through instant quotes, purchase entire BOMs or product lists, and receive virtual assistance at any time, through any channel.

Customers can create an online profile where they typically have a cart filled with items they can convert into a quote request. Altering the cart's contents allows them to swap out certain items for those that fit better or are of superior quality. The cart can also be modified to include new items. The sales consultant and the customer can virtually negotiate for multiple rounds before they reach a mutual decision. These negotiations take place in comment boxes where customers can request better prices and sales consultants can create limited-time offers. Once an agreement is reached the quote is added to the customer's cart, submitted for review, and finally, a digital quote is issued.

Alternatively, with the Agent Assist functionality, a customer and sales agent can correspond offline. Since this acts as a customer support feature, the sales agent can edit or update the customer’s cart on their behalf. Special offers can also be applied and negotiations take place as usual before the cart is converted into a digital quote.

How Digital Self-Service Quoting benefits your business

  • The digital revolution has made it possible to receive responses within seconds through request management tools and AI. Smart devices, like voice assistants, allow easy quote requests that can also be managed remotely. Modern customers expect fast and immediate solutions and would prefer to use self-service options instead of interacting with a company representative. If requesting a quote requires too much effort they will seek simpler solutions elsewhere. Therefore businesses that meet these expectations can turn their self-service solution into a cost saver.
  • Leveraging customer behavioral insights through customer data can inform better decisions, from marketing to product and pricing. Self-service quoting opens up the opportunity to personalize and optimize the customer experience. The data can also be used to inform special offers and price negotiation rounds to retain price-sensitive customers. Whether that’s through AI, or your sales team using data to reveal previous quote requests, preferences, and typical budgets. Self-service quoting ultimately avails data that enables your business to make the right decisions.
  • Self-service quoting empowers customers with quote-related inquiries to obtain instant answers. More than ever before, users value convenience and saving time. Digital self-service quoting eliminates physically tracking quote updates because all the information is conveniently stored in a single database. At any moment of the day, a touch of a button can solve simple problems. Businesses not only reduce costs but also foster client loyalty and trust, which are increasingly important with time.
  • Minimized engagements, such as sales drives and calls, reduce expenses and increase revenue because automated interactions are considerably less expensive than conventional methods. Sales consultants can dramatically increase conversion and lifetime value by focusing on more sophisticated and valuable customer interactions.

Business Outcomes Of Digital Self-Service Quoting

What Sort Of Value Does It Generate?

Increased Efficiency & Optimization

  • Seamless communication between all stakeholders
  • Full traceability of the quoting process
  • Improved negotiation/pricing cycles
  • Reduction in process cost due to little to no “manual” interaction
  • Price benchmarking: easily identify cost-saving opportunities by comparing pricing from countless global suppliers in one easy interface

Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty

  • Stronger business relationships
  • Increased convenience
  • Improved customer service
  • Quick customer data access through ERP and CRM systems
  • Addition of cross-selling and upselling
  • Improved reordering processes
  • Easy conversion of self-service quotes into digital orders

Spryker Capabilities

Digital Self-Service Features from the B2B-Solution with Spryker Cloud Commerce OS

The Spryker Cloud Commerce OS enables customers to request quotes on your products and services with ease and efficiency. This powerful combination of capabilities, services, and tech partners enables enterprises to convert their digital commerce challenges into business value.

Spryker Capabilities

  • Spryker Cloud Commerce OS
  • Volume Pricing
  • Customer-specific pricing
  • Measuring and packing units
  • ERP, CRM and back-end system integration
  • Quotation and Offer Management

Enabling Services

  • Customer journey analysis
  • Digitization mapping
  • Operating model coaching
  • Process design workshop

Technology Partners

  • Balance

Customers

Success speaks for itself. See how thriving businesses are using Spryker capabilities to customize, scale and win!

PacMart

Increased efficiency & process optimization through digital self-service quoting for a packaging and bottling industry marketplace.

PacMart's customers can submit online requests for brand-new equipment by correctly entering the necessary data for a free, no-obligation quote. Sales consultants and internal product specialists receive this information right away, and within 24 hours, the customer is contacted to discuss their specific needs over the phone or by email. PacMart is supported by Spryker Cloud Commerce OS, and features such as Configurator and Quotation and Offer Management.

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SLV

Customizable lighting solutions that combine design and technology to provide versatility with minimum effort.

SLV customers go through an online product configuration process where they can select the product, basis, and accessories. The entire selection and configuration process is online and initiated solely by the customer. SLV’s system guides the user at every step including providing suggestions for compatible accessories and additional buying advice along the way. When the process is complete, it creates an order summary, which is forwarded to a sales representative who uses the data to generate an instant quote. SLV is supported by Spryker Cloud Commerce OS, and features such as Configurator and Quotation and Offer Management

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About Spryker

Spryker is the leading global composable commerce platform for enterprises with sophisticated business models to enable growth, innovation, and differentiation. Designed specifically for sophisticated transactional businesses, Spryker’s easy-to-use, headless, API-first model offers a best-of-breed approach that provides businesses the flexibility to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating faster time-to-value throughout their digital transformation journey. As a global platform leader for B2B and B2C Enterprise Marketplaces, IoT Commerce, and Unified Commerce, Spryker has empowered 150+ global enterprise customers worldwide and is trusted by brands such as ALDI, Siemens, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Ricoh. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin and New York backed by world class investors such as TCV, One Peak, Project A, Cherry Ventures, and Maverick Capital. Learn more at spryker.com.

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