When evaluating which software product to adopt for your office technology business, consider the value of an industry-specific platform. There are numerous advantages to devising and running your sales workflow with a quoting tool that is designed exclusively for the capital equipment machines and services industry. What is it that makes this type of quoting tool so unique? Here are four reasons to consider.
Office Equipment is Often Financed – But Not Always
Major capital equipment expenditures are pricey, especially for small businesses. Financing options that fit a company’s needs are available. Dealers must be in a position to offer these choices and incorporate them into their quoting documents. They should be prepared to point out the following advantages of financing equipment to their clients:
- Leasing is financially more viable for many small businesses. Copier leases are written up with monthly payment agreements that are lower than the cost of an outright purchase of the equipment. SalesChain offers integrations to major finance companies to streamline the workflow for these deals.
- A lease agreement typically lasts for three or four years, during which time the copier manufacturers are busy designing and releasing models with upgraded features. At the end of a lease term, a business has the opportunity to choose a newer model, allowing their business to exploit the latest in technological improvements, rather than owning an older machine outright.
- A lease agreement can be coupled with a service agreement. This provides businesses with the advantage of a trained staff from a factory-authorized dealer to handle ongoing maintenance and repair, if necessary.
With this in mind, a pricing tool designed for Copier dealers needs to have robust capabilities in the realm of financing, both in terms of offering pricing options as well as in offing transparency into the customer’s history.
Copier Sales are Cyclical
The cyclical nature of copier sales means that competitive equipment/opportunity tracking is critical, along with maintaining your own lease portfolio. Automating your tracking with software ensures that sales representatives will never overlook a chance to check in with current and potential customers in their territory, lessening the chances of their competitors reaching out to them first. For example, SalesChain’s software lets you choose the workflow timing, so you don’t miss a client’s lease expiration date. Having the ability to track these competitive opportunities with lease expiration dates and as much data as possible can help break your competitor’s cycle and give you the opportunity.
Focusing on these opportunities for repeat business can be of tremendous benefit to your company. Since you already have an established professional relationship with them, they are going to be easier to sell to. This reduces the larger cost outlays associated with acquiring new customers, as well as the cost of marketing. Repeat customers are more likely to spend more money with you, especially if you offer the opportunity to use lease financing tools. SalesChain’s lease desk gives comprehensive views of each lease, including meter reads and usage data to help close that deal again. Satisfied customers are loyal and will promote your business. Customer retention will increase your company’s profitability. You can even track the health of your customer base using SalesChain’s data and analytics dashboarding tool.
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Other Services are Likely (Nay, Guaranteed) to Go Along with Copier Sales
Today’s office environments leverage many different tools and services to maximize business efficiency. For office technology companies, these include many different choices beyond mainframe copiers and printers, such as IT products, IT services, print products, print services, document management and scanning services, and maintenance and supply services. Dealers are looking to be a one-stop-shop for these services for their clients, both to help them streamline their operations and to encourage a continued partnership with repeat business for the dealer. This is especially true for their smaller customers, who don’t have the infrastructure, employees, or time to manage these other services.
Having the capacity to offer bundled solutions to their clients gives a competitive edge in this increasingly complex market. SalesChain software allows dealers to sell different types of products individually or as a bundle, using bi-directional integrations to tools such as ConnectWise, e-Automate, and Etilize. As dealerships expand into these diverse offerings, sales teams need more product and service-specific details. SalesChain’s order breakdown CPQ tool allows different sales teams within dealerships to tailor-make blended solutions packages for their clients and allows managers to better track progress and trends.
Catalogs are Vast and Dynamic
With so many products to choose from, it’s hard for small dealerships to keep up. A quality software tool is vital for collating the enormous manufacturer catalog databases. The SalesChain software platform includes a cohesive, comprehensive, and readily searchable database of catalog entries for use by sales representatives. Our catalog marketing and maintenance team is committed to continuous updates which include the latest models, as well as machines that are still available for sale as refurbished units or off-lease options. With integrations to Ingram Micro, Supplies Network and TD Synnex, SalesChain also imports major IT product distributor catalogs into SalesChain’s proposal and order pricing tool daily.