Automate that Quote Platform  

Wouldn’t it be cool to automate that quote you create for a client on an easy-to-use client accessible eCommerce platform?  Simply take the sales call and direct them to a place where they can accept the quote and pay for it?  Why? To save time and money for you and to quickly filter out that wanting and willing clients from the not so serious people.  It’s easy to advertise and attempt sell products online on a ECommerce platform but yes, services can be a bit more convoluted.  Skip down to Automate Your ECommerce Service Delivery Offering if you do not want to hear what business operations efficiencies ultimately got me fixated on quote and proposal automation. 

Business Operations Guru 

As the saying goes though, time is money.  That phrase resonates exponentially more when owning a business.  For years now, I have worked on all facets of the business, delegated roles here, automated operations stuff there, and completely overhauled our systems in the never-ending goal of optimizing our business.   

I used to drop almost everything for any chance to establish new workflow rules, system processes, and document everything for our business operations.  Why?  I don’t want to work more than I have to, duh.  Any time I am able to delegate these processes, automate tasks, and integrate with other systems is more dollars I am saving and less I have to worry about managing in the future. 

Integrate Billing with Contracts 

For instance, the past couple of years we have integrated our support system with our client contracts.   Those contracts are tightly integrated with our billing system and that ultimately ends up in our invoicing system.   All the systems talk to each.  Therefore, less mistakes and a heck of a lot more operational efficiencies are now built in. 

Automate Your ECommerce Service Delivery Offering 

But yes, the operational efficiency I am now craving is a lot more on the sales side.  Investing the time to not only automate that quote and blend the proposal into a quote but enabling the client to pay at the same time narrows the gap between prospective clientele and actual client.  Again, this is not a serious challenge for simple transactions but there’s a significant benefit for more convoluted ecommerce checkout processes.   

Here are the steps in detail necessary for the service provider to achieve a seamless all in one ecommerce transactional process: 

1. Wanting prospective client consumes content on the service provider page and likes the service offering enough to click the Call-to-Action button 
2. Client is redirected to the integrated ecommerce platform 
3. Client has the option to read in detail what the service offering entails followed by clicking accept the quote, legalese, and payment form. 
4. Payment submission fires off a series of requests to the PSA for creating the contract, approve & post of the contract, the charge, and ultimately the invoice that integrates with your Books. 

The client checkout process that creates the contract and accept the legalese all at the same time while accepting a proposal on a ecommerce platform is a game changer for many of small and micro businesses.  More than 80% of clients that contact you for services can now be catered to some precise service offerings and contract types. 

Automate That Quote Summary 

We all invest a lot of time and money hyping ourselves or our business that we are better than our competition. It’s a significant financial loss each time that you didn’t make you or organization deliver a frictionless process to complete that final piece for getting a job or accepting your quote.  Automate that quote and increase those operational efficiencies in your life now before you lose out on another opportunity with one of the many common phrases below. 

• “Sign here” you say. How long did it take you to get that proposal ready for them?
• “Ok, please fill out this form for ACH”, “kindly write us a check”, or “we will be invoicing you shortly” Do these statements resonate with you?
• “Give us some time to setup a contract and we will be out there as its processed”  I cringe when I have personally been guilty of saying this too many times to count.

These are all time consuming, it’s gunking up the sales process, regardless if one or all of these are an issue for you.