How businesses can sell better and get paid faster 

The moving parts that go into getting new business and making sales need to work together seamlessly to ensure companies have the best opportunity to run smoothly and grow quickly. When these parts aren’t operating efficiently to help shorten the sales cycle and strengthen conversions, or if disjointed payment systems cause slow payments, a business’s long-term stability can be jeopardised. This article outlines how businesses can use integrated systems to sell better and get paid faster. Keep reading to learn more. 

What happens with a fragmented sales cycle? 

When a business’s sales cycle is fragmented, the steps in the customer journey, from getting leads to sending quotes and closing jobs, are siloed and manual. This can lead to a slower sales cycle and makes it harder to know how the business’s performance is tracking. Not only does this make it difficult to understand what needs to happen to achieve a company’s growth goals, but challenges in each stage of the process can cause a range of problems. For example, suppliers may struggle with inaccurate quoting due to insufficient pricing or stock-on-hand data. Sales management also suffers, as the relevant professionals don’t have clear visibility of what needs to be followed up and when. Similarly, when inventory data is not updated in real-time, it can be harder to fulfil orders on time and get paid quickly.  

Building a seamless customer journey from quote to payment

Every touchpoint in a customer’s journey must make it easy for them to engage. Whether initially contacting the business for a quote or making payment when a job or order is complete, companies need integrated systems that make the customer journey seamless and improve internal operations. An integrated, data-driven quote-to-pay process draws data from across the business’s existing systems, such as the customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and accounting systems, to provide quotes based on real-time data, so there’s never an error. Further, by integrating the process at each step, data can be pushed back to the company’s systems to ensure the relevant stakeholders know what dealings the customer has had with the business. This delivers improved visibility and efficiency internally while providing a great customer experience. As a result, the supplier saves time, gets more done and boosts sales, while customer retention and loyalty improve due to the seamless journey.

Essential tools for integrated processes from quote to payment 

There are some key tools that businesses should implement to improve the customer experience from quote through to payment. These tools include:

• Quoting and sales management software: Integrate data from the CRM, ERP, inventory management and accounting systems to streamline quote creation, track and follow-up quotes and proposals, manage approvals and start the order-fulfilment process. 
• Inventory and warehouse management systems: Ensure accurate stock levels and real-time availability for correct quotation and prompt order fulfilment. Never disappoint a customer again by always providing accurate inventory data. 
• Payment gateways and solutions: Get paid faster with secure and efficient payment systems that provide a range of payment and financing options and improve data accuracy by using integrated payments as the business’s source of truth for transaction data.  

Integrated systems unlock growth and efficiency 

With integrated systems in place, businesses can experience faster sales cycles, reduced costs, improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, and revenue growth. In fact, integrating quoting software with the business’s existing systems, such as a CRM, can result in a 49 per cent improvement in meeting revenue targets. This is due to the improved visibility, efficiency, and accuracy that integrated systems provide. Further, sales teams can see a 13x reduction in the average sales cycle when they use integrated software solutions to send and track quotes. And with the average quote win rate standing at 40 per cent, companies need tools that will help them streamline their quotation and sales order management process.

Boost your business growth with Spenda

Getting the right tools to streamline the quotation process and boost sales helps businesses gain improvements internally and externally. Spenda’s quote and sales order management, and integrated payment solutions provide businesses with a suite of tools that make it easy to send quotes quickly, win more business, and get paid faster. When these tools are integrated with existing systems, such as the CRM, ERP and accounting systems, data accuracy is improved, and the business always knows where its performance stands.

Spenda’s latest whitepaper: How the right payment solution can transform your supply chain covers everything you need to know when choosing the right software and payment solution for your business.  

Spenda is an integrated business platform that enables businesses across the supply chain to sell better and get paid faster. We serve as both a software solutions provider and a payment processor and deliver the essential infrastructure to streamline business processes before, during and after the payment event. Our connected platform displaces multiple disparate systems in favour of one collaborative solution that improves transactional efficiency between businesses.   

This article is for general information purposes only. Consult a qualified financial advisor regarding any changes to or decisions about your business’s finances.