Spreadsheet Pandaemonium? Here’s a solution ✓
👉 Watch John’s video on this topic instead
John Schuler, the product manager for PSQuote, took a moment recently to outline the challenges that customers face due to the overuse and misuse of spreadsheets in the process of services quoting and estimation.
“In a recent conversation with a company, they described the significant challenges they face with their current services quoting and estimation process, which relies heavily on spreadsheets.”
John Schuler – PSQuote Product Manager
Schuler noted that the spreadsheet process is marked by internal chaos due to scattered data, multiple people updating different versions, and frequent errors in formulas or macros. These errors often go unnoticed for months, leading to substantial issues when incorrect pricing is presented to clients. The decentralized nature of their data, spread across various spreadsheets and shared drives, makes it difficult to find the latest versions of quotes, particularly when team members are globally dispersed.
Stop Coping with Chaos
When chaos is the status quo… then team members are forced to cope with chaos. That means they’ll be struggling on a daily basis with small things that are causing big problems.
“Which version of the workbook is the one that’s the latest and greatest? I don’t want to call somebody up after hours to try to wake them up and figure out which version of this is the one that I’m supposed to be reviewing? Or which version did you send to the client about?’ Those were some interesting moments where they’re kind of pointing out some of those things which are big issues for them.”
Finding the current primary quote is challenging, and there is no centralized reporting system to provide a holistic view of the forecast or pipeline. Schuler went on to say that this lack of centralized data forces them to manually check and validate information, often involving after-hours communication across time zones, which further complicates their workflow and efficiency.
“You can’t report on the quote data or see a holistic forecast, across Excel workbooks. You just can’t do that easily.”
Cut Through the Chaos and Simplify with PSQuote
“So as the VP of services whose role it is to look across the whole region or even globally, he began to see that PSQuote could resolve some long-standing pain points. He began to see the huge benefit of ‘let’s just get this into Salesforce with our CRM so all the quote data is right there’ creating simplicity in their process. And yeah, that way you don’t have to wake up somebody.”
Transitioning the client’s services quoting data to Salesforce by using PSQuote is a compelling solution, offering centralized visibility and streamlined reporting.
For most companies, the path to success means bringing the client’s rich quoting and estimating data into Salesforce. Teams can easily create, access and update quotes in PSQuote, see the entire pipeline at a glance, and generate comprehensive forecasts.
Schuler concluded that using Salesforce would eliminate the need to track multiple spreadsheet versions manually and reduce the risk of errors. This provides an efficient and reliable system for managing services estimates and quotes, thanks to the comprehensive platform that Salesforce offers making apps like PSQuote possible. Once the quote data is in Salesforce, it’s unlocking the organizations potential to gain deeper insights into the health of their services business.
Need more convincing? Read our full list of why estimating in spreadsheets doesn’t work & the hidden costs of not using a services quoting solution.
Lucy is a freelance writer who hails from the rolling Appalachia of Front Royal, VA. She works in digital marketing and freelance work, and enjoys equestrian, dance, and reading the classics in her spare time.