channelcentral Blog

Photo by Dan Mason

So thinking we had covered all eventualities was my mistake. Unprompted by customer the team here decided that they could further improve our Bundle offering within iQuote.

What happens if a user decides not to use a Bundle but then designs a quotation that has all of a Bundle’s parts in it (bear in mind that there can be several Bundles that apply to a single System Unit)? Wouldn’t it be great if the Bundle Rebate was applied and the user was informed? It does.

What happens in a similar situation if the user adds nearly all of the option parts meaning that a further addition could trigger a huge saving for the End User Buyer? Set a threshold of say 60% of options parts triggers a Bundle alert. It does.

Working with Bundles is like being in a maze hence the graphic. Before these modifications we were giving users a map that they could ignore, now we are showing them the way at every turn. When HP are competing for every available deal through its channel achieving the best possible price on every quote is supremely important and now it’s easy.

Bundles! A common tactic to discount and attach sell at the same time. iQuote supports Bundles and has done for a couple of months. However, when you allow the addition of a Bundle you also need to follow the user processes through. Can you rely on the Sales Person not removing a component of a Bundle, invalidating the discount but still offering it? Not always so we have put a safety net in place to not only warn the user but also to remove the discount if they ignore the warning.

More recently we have put in place a few other enhancements to the Bundle function:

• We have strictly enforced date ranges on Bundles so we don’t offer Bundles that have expired or pre-launch them.
• We also now cater for a scenario where an old quotation is opened that had a Bundle within. If the Bundle no longer exists it will warn the user but it will also analyse the contents of the Basket and recommend a close fit current Bundle if available and it will advise them of the changes.

I believe we’ve covered all eventualities! It’s all part of ensuring that the best (and correct) price is offered every time.

Last week iQuote was rolled out to around seventy users at Ingram Micro UK, a global Distributor. The portfolio that Ingram Micro UK covers for HP is personal workstations, desktops and notebooks. iQuote was modified to cater for the different requirements that are required for these products (compared to servers).

Ingram Micro ran training sessions and SPIF activity as part of the launch. We were encouraged to see use of our feedback process initially to flag minor changes required but this soon changed to suggestions for improvement that, where possible, we will work towards.

Jim Redman, Business Manager for HP within Ingram Micro provided some early feedback:

“Feedback from the sales floor has been well above my personal expectations and it looks like we have an excellent tool with iQuote which is starting to work for us. This is great news as it has a knock on effect of reducing the number of basic sales support issues we get in the Business Management team. Development times for improvements etc are very short which also helps the sales floor increase their faith in iQuote.”