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Most clients that we’ve worked with do not generally have the appetite to revise their pricing structures or strategies. The “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” mentality can prevent healthy change, but CPQ can accommodate a wide variety of Pricing Use Cases, and oftentimes some great ‘out-of-the-box’ features that organizations don’t utilize. If you’re preparing for a CPQ project, already have CPQ implemented, or if you’re considering new ways to price your products without a CPQ solution – take a look at these three key CPQ features.

1. Tiered Pricing Options

Many organizations using CPQ do not utilize the Tiered Pricing that is offered in CPQ within either Block Pricing or Discount Schedules. These features allow your Prices or Discount to automatically update based on longer contract terms or higher quantity amounts. This feature streamlines the discounting decisions for Sales Reps. It’s an obvious decision to give a client a discount if they are willing to provide us with more revenue, but Sales teams do not always know the optimal discount based on a larger revenue deal. We recommend leveraging CPQ to automate this process. Tiered discounts encourage upsells to clients. Your Sales team will have access to all of the tiers for a selected product in CPQ, and this enables them to confidently upsell knowing the pricing right away rather than having to seek approval.

2. Promotional Pricing

One of the best ways to win new business is with Promotions. But in a B2B setting, it’s not always as easy to automate that process. You must rely on Sales teams to promote and sell correctly based off of the promotion.

A very simple and easily maintainable solution is available in CPQ. Price lookup rules are very common, but it is less common to see them used for Promotional Pricing. A simple Price Lookup rule that targets the Campaign object can be used to pull in Discounts that are maintained on the Campaign record. No new price rules will be needed. Marketing and Sales Directors can create Promotions against Campaigns, and Discounts will automatically flow into Quotes until the Campaign and Promotion ends.

3. Multi-Dimensional Quoting

Another powerful feature in CPQ pricing strategies is Multi-Dimensional Quoting. Clients often bring use cases to Spaulding Ridge around offering a 13th month free, or ramping discounts up or down over time. Building out different pricing details month-over-month or year-over-year is completely out-of-the-box with Multi-Dimensional Quoting. Simply apply a Price Dimension to a Subscription Product and define the term segment as Year, Quarter, Month, or Custom. That’s all you need to do to set up a product for Multi-Dimensional Quoting.

Before you think custom coding or costly implementation, truly understand the benefits CPQ offers from day one. Spaulding Ridge’s Salesforce practice focuses on aligning these features to your business processes and helping you get the most out of your investment.

Founded in 2018, Spaulding Ridge is a top management consulting firm, dedicated to client success and helping organizations implement and adopt best-in-cloud technology to solve their most pressing challenges. We provide the office of the CFO financial clarity to Sales and Operational complexity by integrating financial and sales SaaS Platforms.

We help:
• Finance gain control ” Increasing financial effectiveness, insight and impact
• Sales increase Productivity ” Hitting quota more quickly, consistently and efficiently
• Operations increase Competitiveness ” Through productivity rates, customer service outcomes, and efficiency

Eric Jacobson Headshot
Eric Jacobson
Partner, Spaulding Ridge
About the Author

Eric Jacobson, Partner, has 8+ years of experience implementing CPQ software. He specializes in building out strategic offerings that connect Sales, Finance, Operations, Legal, and Accounting to create a truly connected cloud for clients.