Yes, you are correct I couldn’t add any more acronyms in this headline. Anyway have you noticed that many businesses think of Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) tools first as a Business to Business (B2B) tool? Meaning they see them first and foremost as tools for Sales and Channel Partner Teams.  While this is certainly one use case for CPQ tools these tools are also used to address Business to Consumer (B2C) business scenarios. Meaning a consumer can use a CPQ tool as part of an e-commerce experience to configure the products and services they are interested in. Let us look at some examples to better understand how consumers and business users employ CPQ tools differently

Consumers

  • Use a CPQ Tool infrequently and hence are not familiar with it. This means the product and service offering should probably be simpler (e.g. use of bundles, reduced number of product options, use of guided selling functionality). In addition to that the User Interface probably needs to be more intuitive and self explanatory since the consumer may not be familiar with the product and/or services
  • May use a CPQ tool unconsciously when browsing a website (e.g. accessing the product catalog and then customizing a product or service)
  •  May want to buy a product immediately instead of getting first a formal quote

B2B Users

  • Sales Teams or Channel Partners use CPQ tools frequently and hence should be intimately familiar with it. FYI – this also means these users need some form of training for the CPQ tool to ensure they use it effectively!
  • Use the CPQ tool consciously and probably realize when they leave their CRM tool and get into the CPQ tool
  • A quote is always provided before a customer requests an order

While there are many different use cases between consumers and B2B users there are also a number of common use cases. Both users expect for example to

  • get product suggestions (e.g. add on products, cross sell or up sell products)
  • see customer specific prices (e.g. see list price, custom discounts, leasing options)
  • receive help as needed (e.g. guided selling, product images, customer available discounts, product availability, leasing options, marketing collateral, ability to chat, shipping information)

A question here is “Do you have to maintain this information for Consumers and B2B users separately?”. I say it makes sense to use one CPQ tool for all your channels as long as you don’t have a compelling reason to not do it.

The advantage of using your CPQ tool also for your B2C processes is

  • you pay the software license fees for one CPQ tool and not for two or more tools
  • you only need one support and one CPQ tool maintenance team which again means lower costs
  • you make it easier for your customers to do business with you because you offer the same products, no matter what channel a customer uses, in the same way. This means there is less need for training and less possibility for confusion.

Ideally you should target to have one CPQ tool with different User Experiences (UX) for your front-end (e.g. Sales, Channel, Website) and your back-end (e.g. order management, manufacturing) users, processes and systems. This will help to keep CPQ related costs and complexity lower.  After all CPQ is only a tool to keep your business running smoothly.

Concerning B2B and B2C use cases you may also was to check also this Gartner Report at http://info.pros.com/Gartner-Predicts-2016_DownloadPage.html