[insideBIGData] Boost Sales Team’s Confidence with Price Optimization

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Welcome to insideBIGDATA’s “Heard on the Street” round-up column! In this regular feature, we highlight thought-leadership commentaries from members of the big data ecosystem. Each edition covers the trends of the day with compelling perspectives that can provide important insights to give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace. We invite submissions with a focus on our favored technology topics areas: big data, data science, machine learning, AI and deep learning.

Boosting the Sales Teams’ Confidence with Price Optimization. Commentary by Zilliant Senior Vice President of Products & Science Pete Eppele

Inflation, supply chain shortages and general market volatility have put salespeople in a historically difficult position. They have been the “bearer of bad news,” if you will, from everything from limited product availability to repeated price increases. In most cases, sales teams aren’t provided with the contextual data to help them explain the rationale behind price increases to their customers. Over time, they lose confidence in pricing as they face increased push-back from their already-stretched customers. The result is often increasing requests for customer price exceptions and, ultimately, lost margin. In times of inflation and volatility, price optimization software offers unique advantages. Price optimization can replace traditional methods of “across the board” price moves with more surgical and personalized price changes for each customer. For example, if a customer is paying a price that’s higher than similar customers, they may get a smaller recommended increase. This can be a great selling point for a sales rep to discuss with that customer. On the other hand, if a customer is underpaying relative to similar customers, volatility provides an opportunity to align that customer to what similar customers pay without overcharging. Visibility to optimized pricing can be extended directly into sales tools like CRM and CPQ using visual analytics. This makes it straightforward for salespeople to see one customer’s price relative to other customers with similar buying behavior. Transparent price optimization boosts the sales teams’ confidence in pricing guidance and ensures that necessary price increases stick with customers.

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