Lack of documented procedures led to inconsistency in price quotes

The Issue: 

The company had a general guideline for how much certain items cost, especially when it came to selling policy manuals and things like that. But when it came to selling training content the processes were more generic. This meant that sales agents, who were paid on commission, had a lot of latitude in how much customers got charged. Some agents were slashing prices to whatever they thought they could get away with so they could make a sale. Other agents deliberated charged more because they knew the customer had no choice but to pay it. This meant that some customers were paying $200 for an item that other customers were paying $1,000 for. It was wildly inconsistent and made forecasting profits a challenge.

The Solution: 

I created a pricing matrix tool in Excel. My boss and I spent several days gathering market intelligence on what the current rates were from our competitors and then priced our product similarly. I created a tool that incorporated volume discounts, add-on features, different value tiers, and pre-authorized discounts. All the agents had to do was enter the quantity of the sale and the tool would do the rest. It was locked down so it was impossible for them to change any field except the quantity.

The Results: 

While it is difficult to quantify this success with a fiscal value, the immediate result was that our pricing was now uniform and consistent throughout the company. It didn’t matter which sales agent a customer talked to, they would get a similar price quote. The agents also really liked this tool because it removed the guesswork from the equation and it had a “value worksheet” attached that showed the estimated value of each item in the tiered packages. Between the value worksheet and the bulk discounts, this gave them additional tools in their sales pitch arsenal to work with.