Guided selling helps customers and sales reps find the right products based on individual needs and preferences. For manufacturers of custom products with complex configurations, guided selling simplifies decision-making and improves sales effectiveness.
Guided selling tools enable users to accurately configure custom products and calculate pricing and discounts. Guided selling uses intelligent rules-based technology to guide sales teams and customers to make valid configuration choices. Users are provided with information about compatibility issues and receive prompts for suitable alternatives. Sales teams using guided selling tools can also identify and suggest valid upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
Here are our five steps to implementing a successful guided selling strategy.
1. Understand your customers’ needs
The foundation of guided selling is a good understanding of your target audience. For manufacturers of custom products, this means identifying the specific requirements of end-users, distributors, and sales teams. Use customer research, surveys, and analytics to understand challenges related to complex configurations. This knowledge enables you to create personalized recommendations that simplify product selection and ordering.
2. Streamline the product selection journey
An effective guided selling experience for complex product configurations begins with an intuitive product-build process. This can be achieved through interactive 3D product configurators that guide customers through component selection and provide a visual representation of how the finished product will look. These tools allow users to manipulate various product parameters, such as size, color, features, and materials, to create custom configurations tailored to their specific needs. When used as part of a visual CPQ solution, product visualization is a powerful tool that can help drive sales and streamline the manufacturing process for customized products.
3. Deliver data-driven and personalized recommendations
Leverage historical customer data and AI to match users with the best-fitting custom configurations. This ensures that recommendations are accurate, aligned with technical requirements, and feasible within manufacturing constraints. Offering personalized suggestions based on previous purchase history, engineering specifications, and real-time preferences helps reduce quoting errors, speed up the sales cycle, and improve the customer experience.
4. Improve collaboration across teams
Guided selling is not just about customer interactions—it also optimizes how sales teams, distributors, and customers work together. It brings together digital tools that enable seamless collaboration, such as shared dashboards, real-time quoting systems, and automated workflows. This fosters better communication, minimizes errors, and ensures everyone in the sales pipeline has the information they need to close deals efficiently.
5. Optimize and continually improve
Guided selling should be an evolving process. Monitor key performance metrics such as conversion rates, quote turnaround times, and customer feedback. Gather feedback internally from sales teams and externally from distributors and customers to understand usability and inform UX development.
Guided selling with DriveWorks product configurator technology
Implementing a DriveWorks product configurator has enabled F.H.Brundle to simplify quoting, improve accuracy, and deliver superior customer service.
Using DriveWorks technology, F.H. Brundle built Liveconfigurator™, an online 3D product configurator for their internal teams, distributors, and customers. Customers can configure custom balustrades anytime, anywhere, and receive order-specific sales documents, parts lists, and technical drawings within minutes.
Learn more about guided selling with a DriveWorks demo
Manufacturing custom products doesn’t have to be complicated. A DriveWorks product configurator solution enables you to make selling easier, reduce errors, and improve efficiency.
Take advantage of the wealth of experience in the Driveworks team and book a demo with a DriveWorks specialist. They’ll help you get under the hood of different DriveWorks technology features, enabling you to identify and focus on the software capabilities that align with your business requirements. They can guide you through practical applications and explain advanced features in a way that enables you to see how the technology could enable you to implement a guided selling strategy.