As powerful as CRM software is, it doesn’t do it all. It falls a bit short when configuring products, pricing deals, and creating accurate quotes.
That’s where CPQ comes in. Think of Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) software as the perfect partner for your CRM, picking up where CRM leaves off to ensure a seamless and efficient sales process from start to finish. Together, they make a dynamic duo, giving your team the tools to close deals faster and deliver a top-notch customer experience.
Before we explore how CRM and CPQ work together, reviewing their differences and how they are essential to specific parts of the sales process is helpful.
Differences Between CRM and CPQ
CRM and CPQ are both essential tools in modern sales processes, but they serve distinct purposes and have different functionalities.
CRM Software
CRM software is a centralized system for managing and nurturing relationships with prospects and customers throughout their lifecycle.
How It Helps Customers: CRM software ensures customers receive timely and personalized communication by tracking their preferences, past interactions, and ongoing issues. This leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, as sales and support teams can respond to their needs efficiently.
How It Helps Sales Teams: CRM software provides sales teams with a detailed view of their pipeline, enabling them to prioritize leads, track opportunities, and forecast revenue accurately. With insights into customer history, behavior, and preferences, sales teams can engage in more meaningful and targeted interactions, ultimately increasing the likelihood of closing deals.
Role in Revenue Operations: CRM software is critical in revenue operations (RevOps) by creating a unified source of truth across sales, marketing, and customer success. It provides real-time insights into customer behavior and sales performance, enabling teams to align their strategies, improve forecasting accuracy, and drive consistent revenue growth.
CPQ Software
CPQ software focuses on streamlining the quoting process by enabling sales teams to create accurate and customized quotes based on complex product configurations and pricing rules.
How It Helps Customers: CPQ software ensures customers receive fast, accurate, and tailored quotes that meet their specific requirements. This reduces frustration from delays or errors in pricing and builds trust in the company’s sales process.
How It Helps Sales Teams: CPQ software eliminates manual errors and simplifies the creation of complex quotes. Sales teams can quickly configure products or services, apply appropriate pricing or discounts, and generate polished proposals. This efficiency allows them to close deals faster and focus more on building customer relationships.
Role in Revenue Operations: CPQ software enhances RevOps by automating critical steps in the sales cycle, such as pricing approval and contract generation. It integrates seamlessly with other systems like CRM and ERP, ensuring a smooth data flow across departments. This alignment eliminates silos and accelerates the entire quote-to-revenue process, improving revenue predictability and efficiency.
| Feature | CRM | CPQ |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Function | Manage customer relationships and sales activities | Configure products, set pricing, and generate quotes |
| Data Focus | Customer contact information, sales pipeline, lead data | Product configurations, pricing rules, quotes |
| User Interaction | Sales teams use it for customer management, tracking, and forecasting | Sales teams use it for quote creation and approval |
| Integration | Integrated with marketing, customer service, and email systems | Integrated with ERP, pricing engines, and contracts |
| Sales Cycle Stage | Early and middle stages of the sales cycle | Later stages (quote generation and final proposal) |
CPQ CRM Integration for the Win
Integrating CPQ and CRM is where the magic truly happens, transforming the quoting process into a streamlined, customer-focused powerhouse. With CRM providing a detailed view of customer interactions, preferences, and purchase history, and CPQ enabling accurate product configuration and pricing, salespeople gain the tools they need to deliver precise, customized quotes at lightning speed.
This integration eliminates manual errors, reduces time-consuming back-and-forth approvals, and ensures every quote aligns perfectly with customer expectations. The result? Sales teams can focus on building relationships instead of wrestling with administrative tasks, creating a smoother, more professional experience for both the seller and the buyer. By uniting these two powerful solutions, businesses unlock greater efficiency, win customer trust, and accelerate the path to closed deals.
Benefits of CPQ Integration with CRM
Seamless Proposals, Quotes & Contracts
Many sales teams use optimal customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to assess leads and follow up with them, but then use standalone solutions for things like sales quoting, price optimization, content management, playbooks and the like.
Using Microsoft Excel and Word as sales tools leads to version control frustrations, a lack of connection between the tools and their CRM, and an increased risk of inaccurate data being added to the CRM. However, a CPQ is integrated into the CRM, turning product configuration, pricing, and quote generation into a seamless part of the sales process.
Learn more in our online guide: What is CPQ?
If you’re using CRM, you already understand the value of automated data processing, tracking and action procedures. Why stop halfway through the sales process? CPQ essentially does the exact same thing as CRM, just for different elements within the sales cycle.
It’s not difficult to see how CPQ complements CRM. Imagine your reps being able to communicate with and send a proposal to a prospect in record time. With all of these processes being connected, the customer feels more confident that the rep is prepared and organized. As such, the sales cycle never becomes bottlenecked; meaning more chances at a successful deal.
Faster Sales Cycles
Studies show that companies that use CPQ solutions enjoy faster sales cycles and a better customer experience. When a sales rep can generate complex quotes promptly, they can respond rapidly to proposal requests and avoid “indecision” sales losses.
When combined with the power of efficient CRM solutions, a rep’s job becomes easier and sales productivity increases with a streamlined and optimized workflow.
Fewer Errors & Delays
When reps are using top CRM solutions like Salesforce along with other stand-alone tools, the chance of errors occurring increases exponentially. Not only that but reps tend to waste too much time searching for accurate pricing and sales content when they’re not already part of the workflow.
When CPQ is integrated with CRM solutions, everything meshes. It’s all part of the same workflow, reducing sales quote errors and allowing the rep to pull proposals, contracts, and other materials from their hat like a practiced stage magician.
This impresses prospects, wows customers and makes it more likely that reps will get an emphatic “yes” when it comes time to close the deal.
Check out the advantages of DealHub CPQ integration with Salesforce CRM:
Streamlines Revenue Operations
Integrating CRM and CPQ is a game-changer for streamlining revenue operations, creating a seamless flow of information and processes across sales, marketing, and customer success teams. CRM provides a centralized hub for customer data, while CPQ automates complex pricing, quoting, and approval workflows.
Together, they eliminate silos by ensuring that every team has access to accurate, real-time insights into customer interactions, deal progress, and revenue forecasts. This integration speeds up the quote-to-revenue process by automating manual tasks, reducing errors, and ensuring consistent data across all touchpoints. With CRM and CPQ working in harmony, RevOps teams can optimize deal velocity, improve collaboration, and deliver predictable, scalable revenue growth.
Better Buyer Experience
Integrating CRM and CPQ creates a superior buyer experience by combining speed, personalization, and seamless collaboration. With CRM tracking every interaction and preference, and CPQ ensuring precise, customized quotes, sales teams can respond to requests faster and with greater accuracy. This personalized approach shows buyers that their unique needs are understood and prioritized, building trust and confidence in the sales process.
Moreover, with tools like a collaborative DealRoom, buyers and sellers can work together in real-time to refine quotes, address questions, and finalize details—all in a single, transparent space. This streamlined process eliminates back-and-forth emails, reduces friction, and creates a smooth, efficient journey for the buyer, leaving them impressed and ready to close the deal.
Easy Adoption
This is the biggest point sales managers need to realize when it comes to marrying CPQ and CRM. If your reps are already using a CRM, trying to force other smart sales solutions upon them will only confuse matters.
Worse still, some reps may resist the new software out of spite. Why learn how to use something else when the CRM seems to work just fine? tends to be the reasoning behind such resistance.
On the other hand, CPQ integration with the CRM platform your reps already use requires little to no learning curve. Guided selling with a sales playbook enables the CPQ to become part of the sales process.
When reps realize how much easier their jobs have become and how the CPQ helps them reach their goals, adoption is automatic, even heralded, and revenue generation immediately becomes greatly impacted. What’s not to love about that?
CPQ CRM Integration = A More Efficient and Stronger Sales Force
The bottom line is that CPQ complements CRM and improves sales effectiveness. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter. One is great without the other but put the two together and the mixture becomes instantly irresistible. Your sales force will think so, too.
So the question is, why haven’t you made the integration yet? Put these automated sales solutions together. You’ll soon see that a more efficient and powerful sales team awaits.
