How to optimise your sales process with the integration of ChatGPT and CPQ software
ChatGPT is revolutionising not only private dialogue, but also everyday professional life. In this blog post, you can find out more about the many ways in which ChatGPT can be used in sales. The integration with CPQ (Configure Price Quote) in particular opens up innovative ways of organising more efficient sales processes.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a chatbot based on artificial intelligence. It was developed by OpenAI. Many people use chatbots not only in their private lives, but also in a professional context. With ChatGPT you can enter into dialogue on almost any topic. The tool answers questions, writes texts and solves tasks.
The special thing about ChatGPT is that it is a chatbot that enters into human-like text conversations with users. The GPT-4 version can process not only text, but also images and audio. This is a “Multimodal Large Language Model” (MLLM).
How can your sales organisation benefit from ChatGPT?
ChatGPT can support your sales organisation in various areas:
- As a pool of ideas: For example, when it comes to the challenges faced by a specific target group.
- When writing texts: Do you have notes from a customer meeting and want to create minutes from them? Then simply ask ChatGPT to do so. Rewrite complicated product descriptions in customer-friendly language? ChatGPT does this for you.
- For a better understanding of your customers: Simply ask ChatGPT what exactly the customer company does.
- Writing target group-specific texts: ChatGPT formulates social media posts, emails and co. to suit your target group.
These are just a few of the many possibilities that ChatGPT offers to support you in your day-to-day work. This gives you more time for your important tasks. However, you should always bear in mind that even ChatGPT can make mistakes – so it is important to cross-check all information.
What is CPQ?
CPQ stands for Configure Price Quote. This refers to a sales process chain that makes it possible to configure, price and quote customised products and services quickly and precisely. CPQ software helps to reduce the complexity and time required to create quotes by providing an intuitive configuration process across all sales channels. For more in-depth information on the topic of CPQ, please read our blog post “CPQ – What is it?”
How to benefit from the integration of ChatGPT and CPQ
The combination of AI and CPQ offers numerous advantages for sales in B2B companies. By integrating a large language model and CPQ software, chatbots such as ChatGPT can access and utilise the CPQ data. This is particularly interesting for B2B companies. I would like to describe some of the possible applications that encoway is working on with the DOCK ONE innovation lab.
What is the DOCK ONE?
DOCK ONE is the Lenze Group’s digital and innovation laboratory for Industry 4.0. DOCK ONE is based in Bremen in offices shared with encoway.
Chatbot in sales
A chatbot that is “fed” with data from CPQ software can score points with real expertise and product knowledge. For example, the DOCK ONE innovation lab is working with encoway on a chatbot solution for easy access to a configuration.
In this use case, interested parties can start a conversation with a chatbot on a company website. The interested parties tell the chatbot about the challenge for which they need a solution. The chatbot accesses the knowledge base from the CPQ system and can determine the correct products from the company that offer a solution to the prospective customer’s problem. This shows the prospective customer what kind of product they are looking for.
The next step takes the prospective customer to the product configurator, where they can further configure the product according to their needs. In this case, the chatbot is a product advisor.
This use case serves several needs at once. On the one hand, fewer and fewer prospective customers want to speak directly to a sales representative, preferring instead to research a solution to their problem themselves. By taking the first step with the chatbot, prospective customers can be guided safely to the correct product, even with an extremely complex product portfolio – without having to speak to a sales representative. As customers are very good at finding their way around the company’s product portfolio themselves, the sales staff do not have to provide support for almost every enquiry and can concentrate on their core tasks.
On the other hand, sales employees can also work with the chatbot as product advisors. Especially with complex product portfolios, it is not always easy for sales staff to have the entire product portfolio in their heads. They can simply ask the chatbot, which suggests a product family and the sales employee can then further configure the product for the specific customer case in the CPQ system. New sales colleagues are also ready for work more quickly and do not have to study the product portfolio before they start their first sales assignment.
The image shows an example of a chatbot that is fed with information from a CPQ system. This is a Lenze application:
Click on the image to enlarge it.
The following picture shows the technical approach of this solution:
Chatbot in customer service
Of course, it’s not just the sales department that benefits from an intelligent chatbot with a knowledge base from the company’s own product portfolio. Customer service can also experience a significant reduction in workload. If customers still have questions after the purchase, they can ask them to the chatbot and receive answers with specialist and product knowledge.
Analysis
With ChatGPT, your sales team can also create analyses. You can simply ask for analyses in natural language without having to know the exact data structures and names of tables and fields. Of course, the relevant data must be available – which you can obtain from a CPQ system.
Even without data scientists, you can quickly and easily find out which products are the most popular, which products are purchased most frequently and in which combination, where configurations are cancelled, etc. You gain an overview of your customers’ behaviour and can incorporate this information into your sales strategy.
Data cleansing
Duplicates, missing values and an inconsistent data format in the CPQ system make the work of your sales staff more difficult. ChatGPT makes data cleansing in your CPQ system easy. This means that your sales staff can always work with a clean CPQ system.
New configuration experience
CPQ software alone offers enormous time savings and makes configuration much easier. In some companies with extremely complex products, configurations are hardly possible without CPQ software.
Integration of ChatGPT and CPQ software could make configuration even easier. Currently, sales employees have to click through many dropdowns when configuring. With a large language model, such as ChatGPT, the basic configuration process could be more specific and take place in a more natural language.
Data security when handling ChatGPT in sales
When we talk about ChatGPT in sales, the question of data security quickly arises. After all, it is not desirable for internal company information to get out. And it is true that ChatGPT stores the data you enter in order to generate responses and train the AI. This is a challenge in terms of data security.
The solutions we are developing with the integration of ChatGPT and CPQ take a different approach. For example, we use a ChatGPT provided by Microsoft Azure, where the data remains in Azure and is not sent to OpenAI. We are also looking into other options for having security-critical information processed only by self-hosted open source chatbots.
Your data security is important to us. We are sensitive to this issue and always take care to protect your data.
Conclusion
As in many other areas, the new technology makes everyday work much easier. The linking of ChatGPT and CPQ opens up a new chapter for sales. From intelligent chatbots in the sales process to data cleansing and an improved configuration experience – the benefits are manifold. The use of artificial intelligence in sales and CPQ software not only optimises customer interaction, but also workflows within the company. The path to more efficient and targeted sales starts here. Contact us to take your company on this innovative journey.
Head of DOCK ONE
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