If you're like many VoIP and hosted PBX resellers, you're likely using Microsoft Excel, or Google Docs or some other spreadsheet tool to provide quotes. Why? Usually, it's because you know how to use it, and quoting tools are too expensive. You're a reseller, not a salesperson.
Spreadsheets are great at tracking numbers, creating budgets and generating fancy graphs and charts. However, providing accurate sales quotes wasn’t their intended use.
Even if you have a template saved for quoting, there's a lot of back and forth between you and your customer until a final quote is settled on. Then what? Can your customer sign and submit online? Probably not, it’s just another version of the same spreadsheet. It’s time-consuming and frustrating for all parties involved.
Here are a few reasons why DIY-ing quotes ends up costing you more in the long run, and why you should consider ditch the spreadsheets for an online quoting tool.
(By the way - our quoting tool comes free as part of the RingLogix platform. Just saying.)
DIY-ing Quotes vs. Using an Online Quoting Tool
1. Real-Time Pricing
Are your sales reps spending most of their time living in a spreadsheet – copying and pasting info into quotes? What if they grab a price from the wrong schedule? You could be quoting higher than normal. VoIP resellers can't take chances with these inaccuracies, as they could lead to lost opportunities.
With an integrated quote tool, like the one offered from RingLogix, your team has access to real-time information to prepare accurate quotes for your proposals – eliminating the potential for a misquote.
You’re in control of the quote and your customer signs and submits everything online with the click button. No need to wait for customer-quote-V8.xls anymore.
➤ Related Content: MSPs and VoIP Resellers - Disruptive Pricing Strategies For The SMB Market
2. Time Is Money
In the words of Tony Stark from Endgame, “No amount of money ever bought a second of time.” If you are creating the quote yourself, or working with an account manager, your customers are playing a waiting game. It can take longer to create a quote in a spreadsheet. Plus, you have to deal with the quote format, turning on permissions to view or edit the quote.
In the time to create one quote spreadsheet, you could have fired off 20 quotes using an automated system. Isn’t that a better use of your time?
3. Lack of Version Control
This can be a major issue. If you have numerous versions of the same sheet being emailed, your team could be issuing outdated information. Or worse, accidentally sharing other customer’s data.
Even with approved templates, it can become obsolete in months with updated pricing or promos. If a template becomes outdated, make sure it is deleted. Even with version control, how many different templates are being used?
With an online quoting tool - like the one inside RingOS - everything you need is in one centralized portal and updated in real-time. You no longer need to spend all that frustrating time cross-referencing 20 different spreadsheets.
4. Number Adjustments
With a spreadsheet, you may not be able to prevent your team from going rogue and creating new rules or formulas. They might be able to change pricing terms and product data. It's what sales does - I'm a sales guy myself, I get it. But if they’re changing details, that could impact margins.
In a spreadsheet system, you can't lock down certain fields. Your team may not even be intentionally changing them, but if someone updates the template and it gets cloned...you get the idea.
With an integrated quote tool, you create a repeatable quoting process for your VoIP reseller business. This allows you to stick to margins. It also makes it easy to apply pricing updates across the board.
5. Interactivity
There is no interaction within a spreadsheet. If your customers need something changed, or need an upgrade, they must reach back out to your rep for a new quote – thus another spreadsheet needs to be edited and sent out – slowing down your sales cycle.
In an online quote tool, once the quote is sent, it's accepted and signed online and you're on the way to collecting revenue in seconds.
An integrated quote tool, like the one offered through RingLogix's white label voip platform, allows you to create a new quote in seconds.
Your customer just picks up the phone, you create the quote and they accept and signup online in one portal. The quote is tracked online, so you don’t miss out on the opportunity.
➤ Related Content: Strategies for VoIP Resellers To Improve Customer Engagement
How does using a spreadsheet sound now? These quoting methods could be holding your sales team and their sales cycle back. Provide beautiful and accurate quotes – under your brand – using an integrated quoting tool like the one offered by RingLogix.
Custom Quoting with RingLogix
➤ Request A Demo Of Our White Label VoIP Platform
Don't settle for 15%-20% sales commissions. Grow your business faster with the white label platform that allows you to achieve margins up to 70% - allowing you more control of your business.
About us: RingLogix offers a white label VoIP platform - RingOS - that enables Partners to sell, provision, invoice, and support their own branded VoIP and UC services. We make becoming a VoIP provider easy with a managed VoIP switch, instant order activations, hassle-free number porting, multiple services, and a flexible billing system.
