How to write a winning quote

How to write a winning quote

As a salesperson, you know that a deal isn't a deal until your prospect has approved your offer. The offer is the last step in the customer journey, like the checkout line in a department store. The last thing you want is for all the work your salespeople have done to source and process your prospects to be stopped at the conversion stage because of a weak and unclear offer. In this post, we'll go over what a quote is and why you should review your current quote, as well as four tips for what you should do to write a winning quote. Let's not wait. Here we go!

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What is a quote?

A quote is a document that is sent from one operator to another before cooperation between the operators begins. The purpose of the offer is to create a written agreement between the supplier (seller) and the buyer (customer). The offer often includes the product description, price, payment and delivery terms. Primarily, the operators want to agree on two things: the content and the price. Once the customer has signed the offer, it is returned to the seller and the cooperation begins. If the customer chooses not to sign the offer, the parties can continue to negotiate, or the customer can cancel and go to another supplier or decide not to make any change at all.

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4 tips on what your quote template should contain

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1. Customize the content

Today's customers are more demanding that a quote be personalised. Get rid of generic templates and information that is not relevant or adds no value to the customer. Instead, focus on tailoring a clear and simple offer that increases trust and makes it easier for the customer to choose you as their supplier. Creating trust is key to converting customers and the quote is just as important a piece of the puzzle as any other touchpoint in the sales process.

In a quote template, it's good to have a basic foundation and then change the content to make it personal to the customer. Use data and insights from your needs analysis and CRM system, or why not create a personalized onboarding plan when building your quote for the customer. It bears repeating, the more personal, the better.

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2. Customize your product choices

If you have a company with many products, it can be very time-consuming to create quotes based on the customer's wishes. In order to avoid that writing quotes takes up too much of your salespeople's time, you should use a configuration tool that has access to your product base and can combine or remove products from the quote.

Use a system that knows your rules and capabilities, so that salespeople can quickly build a quote once the customer has sent a request. Many companies have built their own spinners in Excel or Google Sheets instead of using configuration tools, which tends to cause several practical problems when you want to make changes to your product selections and packages.

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3. Automate price calculations

Excel also has a tendency to arouse mixed feelings, either you hate it or you love it. Either way, you should use the one that saves you the most time. Thanks to automation and artificial intelligence, you don't have to sit and build columns and calculations manually. With a CPQ (Configure Price Quote) tool, you can get the right calculations in seconds. So let automation do what it does best, so your sales people can focus on what they do best - selling.

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4. Quote design

The appearance of the offer affects the customer's perception of your company. It is therefore important that the offer also reflects the company's rules and guidelines in terms of design but also content. A well-designed quotation will include all the necessary documents and annexes, as well as complying with your company's graphic profile. The offer should be reliable, clear and clearly linked to your company profile.

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Who has the time to create perfect quotes?

Well that might be a question you have now, because honestly, it's not like salespeople directly need more administrative work on their desk. There is often simply no time to tailor personal quotes, even if it would have increased the average order value and created more sales for your company. But wait, vloxq actually does all that. We help you save time and secure margins by automating everything that can be automated in a quote flow. So you don't actually have to choose, you can get both professional quotes and happier salespeople!