Does HubSpot have a CPQ?

In this comprehensive blog post, we will delve into the world of CPQ, explore its availability within the HubSpot ecosystem, and discover how the integration between HubSpot and a tool like DealHub CPQ can transform your sales operations.

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, organisations are constantly seeking ways to optimise their sales processes and improve operational efficiency. One powerful tool that can revolutionise the way businesses configure, price, and generate quotes is CPQ functionality.

What is CPQ?

CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote, and it refers to a powerful software solution that helps businesses streamline and automate their sales quoting and proposal processes. CPQ systems are designed to simplify the complex task of configuring product offerings, determining accurate pricing, and generating professional quotes for customers.

With CPQ, sales teams can quickly and accurately create quotes tailored to specific customer needs. The system allows for easy customisation of product configurations, taking into account various options, features, and pricing rules. It ensures that accurate pricing is applied, considering factors such as discounts, promotions, and contract terms. Additionally it automates approval processes based on rules that can easily be configured.

CPQ solutions also enable sales representatives to efficiently manage the quoting process, providing them with guided workflows and intuitive interfaces. These tools help ensure that quotes are error-free, consistent, and aligned with the company's pricing policies and strategies.

By automating the CPQ process, businesses can significantly reduce the time and effort required to generate quotes, leading to faster sales cycles and improved customer satisfaction. CPQ systems also provide valuable analytics and reporting capabilities, offering insights into sales performance, quote conversion rates, and pricing trends.

Pain points solved by advanced CPQ

Manual and error-prone processes have long plagued businesses during the quoting and proposal stages of the sales cycle. However, with the advent of advanced CPQ tools, these pain points are effectively addressed, revolutionising the way businesses generate quotes and proposals.

In this section, we will explore the challenges of manual processes and how CPQ functionality resolves these issues, ultimately saving time and reducing errors.

Challenges of manual and error-prone processes

Businesses often struggle with manual and error-prone processes, complex product configuration, inconsistent pricing and discounting, slow quote generation, limited visibility and analytics, and inefficient approval processes:

Manual processes pose significant challenges for businesses, as they require extensive time and effort, leaving room for human errors and miscalculations. Additionally, the complexity of product configuration often leads to confusion and the generation of inaccurate quotes.

Inconsistent pricing and discounting practices not only undermine customer trust but also disrupt the sales process. Slow quote generation hampers sales responsiveness, while limited visibility and analytics impede data-driven decision-making.

Furthermore, inefficient approval processes introduce unnecessary delays, hampering the overall sales cycle.

However, implementing advanced CPQ solutions can address these issues effectively.

How CPQ functionality simplifies these challenges

The above challenges can all be effectively addressed through the implementation of CPQ functionality. CPQ offers powerful solutions that revolutionise the sales cycle and provide numerous benefits for businesses:

• Manual and error-prone processes: One of the key benefits of CPQ is its ability to automate time-consuming and error-prone tasks. Manual processes involving gathering product details, calculating pricing, and formatting documents are replaced by automated workflows and guided configurations. This not only saves valuable time but also greatly reduces the risk of costly mistakes. Sales teams can generate quotes and proposals in a fraction of the time it would take manually, allowing them to focus on core sales activities and building relationships with customers.
  
  
• Complex product configuration: CPQ functionality also simplifies the complex task of product configuration. With a vast array of options, features, and configurations available, sales teams often face challenges in selecting the right choices for each customer's specific needs. CPQ tools provide guided configuration processes, ensuring that sales representatives can easily navigate through the available options and choose the most suitable ones. This eliminates confusion, reduces the risk of configuration errors, and ensures accurate quotes that precisely meet customer requirements.
  
  
• Inconsistent pricing and discounting: CPQ functionality addresses this challenge by providing businesses with the ability to define pricing rules, discounting policies, and promotions. By enforcing standardised pricing structures, CPQ ensures consistent pricing and discounting across the organisation. This prevents pricing discrepancies, enhances pricing accuracy, and ensures pricing compliance, thereby instilling confidence in customers and improving overall sales effectiveness.
  
  
• Slow quote generation: CPQ tools automate the quote generation process, allowing sales teams to quickly generate professional-looking quotes with accurate pricing, product configurations, and other relevant information. This enables businesses to respond faster to customer inquiries, increasing sales productivity and improving the overall customer experience.
  
  
• Limited visibility and analytics: Furthermore, CPQ functionality provides businesses with enhanced visibility and analytics. Real-time insights into sales performance, quote-to-order conversion rates, pricing trends, and more enable businesses to gain a comprehensive understanding of their sales processes. This data-driven approach empowers businesses to identify areas for improvement, make informed decisions, and optimise sales effectiveness.
  
  
• Inefficient approval processes: CPQ also streamlines approval processes by automating workflows for quote approvals, discounts, and exceptions. This reduces delays in obtaining approvals, improves sales cycle times, and enhances overall operational efficiency. Sales teams can focus on closing deals rather than being held up by manual approval processes, further increasing productivity and accelerating the sales cycle.

By automating processes, reducing errors, ensuring pricing consistency, improving quote generation speed, providing visibility into sales performance, and streamlining approval processes, CPQ tools significantly enhance sales efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall sales effectiveness. 

Streamlining processes: the time-saving magic of CPQ

Implementing CPQ functionality brings a multitude of benefits that go beyond addressing the pain points of manual and error-prone processes. 

One of the most notable benefits is the substantial time savings that CPQ tools offer. By automating tasks such as gathering product information, calculating pricing, and generating quotes, CPQ enables sales teams to produce quotes and proposals in a fraction of the time it would take manually. This efficiency allows sales professionals to allocate more of their precious time to core sales activities, such as building relationships with prospects and closing deals.

In addition to time savings, CPQ significantly reduces the risk of errors. Automated calculations and validation mechanisms ensure accuracy, minimising the possibility of incorrect pricing, configuration errors, or other manual mistakes.

The implementation of CPQ also leads to enhanced sales productivity. By streamlining the quote and proposal creation process, CPQ tools enable sales teams to focus on their core strengths. With less time spent on administrative tasks, sales representatives can dedicate more time to engaging with prospects, understanding their needs, and delivering tailored solutions. 

Furthermore, CPQ improves the overall customer experience. Sales teams equipped with CPQ functionality can provide accurate quotes and proposals promptly. By delivering customised, professional-looking documents, businesses create a positive impression and elevate the customer experience. 

By streamlining the sales process, automating tasks, and reducing errors, CPQ tools provide businesses with significant time-saving benefits and contribute to improved sales efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Exploring CPQ in HubSpot

While HubSpot provides "quote" functionality, it does not have a comprehensive CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) tool. The quoting capabilities within HubSpot are more limited and less advanced compared to mature CPQ tools.

SalesHub Only Vs. SalesHub with DealHub CPQ

Hubspot's quote functionality is more suitable for small-scale operations, and for more extensive CPQ capabilities, users may need to integrate with other software solutions.

There are many options available that seamlessly integrate CPQ capabilities into your HubSpot environment, and one popular and highly effective solution is DealHub CPQ.

At Huble, we have chosen to work with DealHub as our preferred CPQ solution for HubSpot, and in this section, we will delve into the benefits and features of DealHub CPQ when integrated into HubSpot. 

What is DealHub CPQ?

DealHub is a leading CPQ provider and is designed to empower sales teams with advanced quoting and proposal management capabilities, streamlining the sales process and enhancing overall efficiency.

With DealHub CPQ, businesses can generate accurate quotes quickly, customise pricing based on specific configurations, and create professional-looking proposals that make a lasting impression on prospects.

Key features and capabilities of DealHub CPQ

DealHub offers a comprehensive suite of features that empower sales teams to create, manage, and close deals effectively. Some notable features of DealHub CPQ include:

1. Configure: DealHub CPQ allows sales teams to configure products or services based on customer requirements, enabling accurate and personalised quotes.

2. Price: With DealHub CPQ, pricing becomes more flexible and dynamic. Sales teams can create custom pricing rules, discounts, and bundles to cater to specific customer needs and market conditions.

3. Quote: The solution provides customisable templates, branding options, and automatic population of product details, ensuring consistency and accuracy in every quote.

4. Proposal Management: DealHub CPQ enables sales teams to create visually appealing and persuasive proposals. It offers template libraries, rich media embedding, and e-signature capabilities to streamline the proposal creation and approval process.

5. Billing: DealHub's recent acquisition of Subzee brings advanced billing capabilities to its CPQ platform, transforming it into a complete Quote-to-Revenue solution. With the ability to manage usage and recurring pricing models, organisations can effortlessly generate accurate billing schedules, consolidate consumption data, and track SaaS metrics, revenue recognition, and sales compensation.

6. DealRoom: DealRoom is a powerful sales collaboration platform that brings buyers and sellers together in real time. It provides a centralised hub for all deal-related information, including contracts, pricing summaries, approvals, and updates. With DealRoom, you can eliminate manual processes, stay organised, collaborate effectively, and accelerate your sales cycle. It's the ultimate tool for streamlining the deal management process and enhancing the buyer's experience.

Integrating HubSpot and DealHub CPQ

Integrating DealHub CPQ with HubSpot allows businesses to leverage the power of both platforms seamlessly. 

The integration enables sales teams to access CPQ capabilities directly within the HubSpot CRM interface, eliminating the need for manual data transfer and ensuring a unified view of the sales process.

The HubSpot-DealHub CPQ integration offers several key benefits:

• Automated Data Sync: The integration ensures that all relevant data, including customer information, product details, quotes, and proposals, is automatically synchronised between HubSpot and DealHub CPQ. This saves time, reduces data entry errors, and provides a holistic view of the sales process.

• Enhanced Sales Collaboration: Sales teams can collaborate more effectively by accessing DealHub CPQ functionalities directly within HubSpot. They can work together on quotes and proposals, share insights, and track progress, promoting seamless teamwork and improved productivity.

• Streamlined Sales Workflow: The integration facilitates a streamlined sales workflow by automating processes. For example, when a deal reaches a specific stage in HubSpot, the integration can trigger the creation of a quote or proposal in DealHub CPQ, ensuring a timely and accurate response to customer inquiries.

• Unified Reporting and Analytics: By integrating HubSpot and DealHub CPQ, businesses gain access to comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities. This allows them to track key sales metrics, analyse performance, and make data-driven decisions to optimise the sales process and drive revenue growth.

Solutions provided by HubSpot and DealHub

Both HubSpot and DealHub offer comprehensive solutions to the common pain points mentioned earlier through their CPQ functionalities.

Let's explore how these six solutions effectively address each challenge, providing businesses with the tools they need to streamline their sales processes and achieve greater efficiency.

1. Manual and error-prone processes: HubSpot and DealHub address this challenge by automating the process of configuring products, accurately pricing them, and generating quotes. Through this automation, sales teams can focus on what they do best - building relationships with customers and driving revenue - rather than being tied down by administrative tasks.
   
   
2. Complexity in product configuration: With CPQ functionality, HubSpot and DealHub simplify this process by providing intuitive interfaces that enable sales teams to easily select the right options, features, and configurations for a customer's specific needs. By eliminating confusion and reducing the risk of configuration errors, businesses can deliver accurate and tailored quotes, ensuring customer satisfaction and facilitating a smoother sales process.
   
   
3. Inconsistent pricing and discounting: HubSpot and DealHub address this challenge by allowing businesses to define pricing rules, discounting policies, and promotions. This ensures that pricing and discounting are consistent across the organisation, preventing discrepancies and enhancing pricing accuracy. Additionally, businesses can ensure pricing compliance, avoiding potential issues and maintaining transparency with customers.
   
   
4. Slow quote generation: HubSpot and DealHub address this challenge by automating the quote generation process. Sales teams can generate professional-looking quotes with accurate pricing, product configurations, and relevant information in a fraction of the time it would take manually. This not only enables faster responses to customers but also increases sales productivity and enhances the overall customer experience.
   
   
5. Lack of visibility and analytics: With CPQ functionality, HubSpot and DealHub provide businesses with valuable insights and analytics on sales performance, quote-to-order conversion rates, pricing trends, and more. This data-driven approach empowers businesses to gain visibility into their sales processes, identify areas for improvement, and make data-backed decisions to optimise sales effectiveness.
   
   
6. Inefficient approval processes: HubSpot and DealHub tackle this challenge by streamlining approval processes through automated workflows for quote approvals, discounts, and exceptions. By reducing the time and effort required to obtain approvals, businesses can accelerate their sales cycles, improve operational efficiency, and enhance overall productivity.

Another key functionality that you get with DealHub is the ability for better multi-language support, enabling localisation capabilities that cater to a global customer base.

By leveraging the solutions provided by HubSpot and DealHub, businesses can overcome the pain points associated with manual and error-prone processes, complexity in product configuration, inconsistent pricing and discounting, slow quote generation, lack of visibility and analytics, and inefficient approval processes.

These robust CPQ functionalities empower sales teams to streamline their operations, save time, reduce errors, and ultimately drive greater success in their sales endeavours.

Accelerating Sales: HubSpot & DealHub in Action

To learn more about how HubSpot’s DealHub CPQ can accelerate your sales processes and overcome business challenges, we invite you to watch our webinar: Accelerating Sales: HubSpot & DealHub in Action.

In this webinar, we dive deep into real-life examples of how Atlas HXM and Garage Living successfully tackled their business challenges through the strategic implementation of HubSpot and DealHub solutions. Discover firsthand how these companies leveraged the power of CPQ to streamline their sales processes, save time, reduce errors, and drive revenue growth.