6 Must-Have Components of a Best-In-Class Product Configurator

Nov 3, 2022 11:58:16 AM | CPQ 6 Must-Have Components of a Best-In-Class Product Configurator

If you've wondered just how to architect the strongest configuration environment possible, Logik.io has six main points you'll want in your strategy.

The configure, price, quote industry is in an unprecedented era of expansion, with the market consistently developing new solutions and tools to keep up with consumerized buyers and their preferences. 

With the accelerated digital developments seen over the past few years further supporting CPQ expansion, you may be wondering what steps you need to take in order to stay competitive and truly earn the patronage of some of the most discerning buyers the market has ever seen. 

They have the luxury of choice, and will end up shopping where they feel best seen and supported. If you want to make it onto their roster, you’ll need to provide a best-in-class configuration environment for them to engage with.

So, you know what you want to accomplish. The next question becomes: how

The prescription is to invest in a headless configurator that will support your buyers and administrators in equal measure, easily accommodate dynamic updates and upgrades, cater to the ever-expanding pool of consumerized shoppers, and deploy proprietary designs and features to keep you firmly differentiated from the competition.

In short, the best route forward is to architect your sales ecosystem around Logik.io’s renowned commerce logic engine, powered by over 100 years of collective CPQ expertise and specifically refined for your ease of use.

Designed by the godfathers of CPQ technology, Logik.io is uniquely equipped to augment Salesforce for the better. Download our free Cheat Sheet to learn everything there is to know about the dynamic duo at https://learn.logik.io/cpq-cheat-sheet.

With the presence and functionality of the following elements found in our engine, you can all but guarantee a top-tier configuration environment that will help you sell more, sell faster, and maintain less

Attribute-Based Configuration

If you’re looking for a way to most closely align with consumer expectations of intelligent, quick configuration, an attribute-based configuration architecture like ours is your best bet. 

With attribute-based configurators, you can reverse-engineer the buying process and give buyers the subtle guidance they need to reach an optimal cart without adding time to the process. 

A combination of customer input provided via questionnaires, surveys, or prompts and pre-loaded system logic allows these configurators to whittle down available options in seconds and present curated matches for the buyer to select from.

Shoppers don’t need to walk in with existing product knowledge or manually sort through inventory as they would in environments supported by more traditional product-based configurators. Instead, they reap the ultimate benefits of your expertise while maintaining agency and authority throughout the process.  

A secondary benefit to the regular collection of buyer input is the data bank that you can monitor for trends and use as a point of reference across time. If your buyers are quite literally telling you exactly what they want, you can make moves to prioritize what they find the most value in.

Dynamic Pricing

It has been shown that one of the single most important aspects of a positive customer experience is whether or not a buyer is able to meaningfully engage with pricing information. 

A notable amount of eCommerce sites have yet to pull back the full curtain on pricing, meaning those that have incorporated dynamic pricing elements stand at the front of the pack. 

Have you found yourself wondering how to properly define and leverage the concept of dynamic pricing in your sales environment? We can help you better understand just what dynamic pricing is, and the value it can bring, via our Logik.io Resource Library. Just click here: https://www.logik.io/blog/what-is-dynamic-pricing.

B2C sellers have long understood the customer’s desire for dynamic pricing, and you can now provide those same offerings in B2B eCommerce environments. 

No matter how sophisticated or nuanced the product offering, Logik.io can support real-time pricing updates based on buyer modifications and generate independent sales bills of material as a form of receipt. 

Guided Selling

Guided selling is the new frontier for any seller worth their salt to start exploring. When properly deployed, guided selling technology can build a bridge between automated system logic and buyers, bringing back hints of traditional, rep-driven sales channels. 

Buyers are able to outline their wants, needs, and preferences via customizable prompts, which the guided selling interface then relays back to the attribute-based product configurator

This volley of data continues on for as many points of input are incorporated into the selling path, ending with a totally unique and fully optimized product proposal for the buyer to engage with. 

They are kept away from any incompatible recommendations, put in front of the right products at the right time, and set up for overall success without having to expend any true energy.

No-script Maintenance

A successful CPQ system hinges upon the maintenance requirements needed to not just keep things running, but actively and repeatedly update, upgrade, and upscale as the business itself grows.

We’ve removed scripting from major actions like creating hierarchical sales BOMs and replicating customer input into data matrices, and offer no-script updates to all of your product actions, rules, and logic structures.

When you can decrease the amount of time it takes to fine-tune your tech stack and front-facing environments, you can reinvest that time in areas where it’ll carry the most weight.

Flexible Structure

There’s nothing better than being able to play by your own rules. While Logik.io is native to the Salesforce platform, our commerce logic engine is headless in construction, utilizing API functionalities to integrate with myriad platforms and applications. 

This means you don’t have to find yourself permanently tethered to any one permanent front-end interface, and can customize our scaffolding to match your own needs and logic.

Our unparalleled Solving Engine 2.0 offers a never-before-seen amount of modifiers for determination rules, exclusion rules, three different types of messages, and product actions. 

We also offer the Logik.io Matrix Loader, which can receive and process data from Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, XML and CSV files to create a full configuration setup in less than five minutes.

High-Speed Performance

Nothing kills the momentum of a properly-working sales funnel like system delays, lags, or glitches. Luckily, the engineers behind Logik.io are in a constant state of system optimization – meaning you’ll always have the fastest, most up-to-date version of our engine available.

We’ve figured out ways to increase rule reusability within our architecture to streamline the configuration process and reduce the amount of manual input necessary to move forward in the funnel. 

Our proprietary “Sets” were recently introduced to advance such reusability, and have marked a shorter time-to-value when contrasted with prior explicit rule requirements. 

We’ve taken the time to fully consider every angle of the engine we introduced to the market, and have seen first-hand what life with Logik.io can do for businesses like you. In one of our most recent go-lives, we were able to provide Keysight Technologies with a 40% reduction in quote time and 80% overall maintenance reduction. 

They needed greater speed and performance out of a configuration solution to drive continuous value improvement for their customers, and we were there to meet the challenge.

If you’re ready to make the switch, you can schedule a free product demo at https://www.logik.io/talk-to-sales.

Blake Grubbs

Written By: Blake Grubbs

Blake has successfully helped several high-growth tech startups build and scale marketing over the past 10 years. Held marketing leadership roles at Seismic, Drift, Alyce, and Simplr, all who successfully doubled and tripled ARR bookings during his tenure. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Management from Boston University's Questrom School of Business.