Identify potential prospects with the prospect to quote business process

Applies to: Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Sales

This article introduces the prospect to quote end-to-end business process. It outlines how Dynamics 365 products can help organizations manage and optimize their prospect to quote processes.

Prospect to quote overview

The prospect to quote business process flow is a sales process that starts with identifying potential customers (prospects). It ends with providing prospects with a quote for the product or service they're interested in purchasing. The following stages fit into this process:

1. Define sales strategy

   This overarching step guides the overall sales process, including the prospect-to-quote stage. It involves setting goals, defining target markets, and creating a plan to achieve sales objectives.

2. Run marketing campaigns

   Marketing campaigns play a role in lead generation and help attract potential customers. This step can be considered part of the lead generation process within the prospect-to-quote stage.

3. Identify and qualify leads

   This step is essential in the prospect-to-quote process, as it involves finding potential customers and assessing their fit and potential value to the organization.

4. Pursue opportunities

   This step aligns with the initial contact, needs assessment, and solution development stages in the prospect-to-quote process. It involves engaging with prospects and working to create tailored solutions that meet their needs.

5. Estimate and quote sales

   This step corresponds to the proposal creation and presentation stages. It involves creating and presenting a detailed quote or proposal to the prospect.

6. Manage customer relationships

   While customer relationship management is an ongoing activity throughout the sales cycle, it plays a role in the prospect-to-quote process, particularly in the follow-up, negotiation, and quote revision stages.

Every organization has some variation of the prospect to quote end-to-end scenario. Here, we define the basic outline for any organization that is looking to implement a technology solution to support the prospect to quote business process.

Impact on the organization

The prospect to quote business process is crucial for sales-driven organizations as it streamlines the sales process, maximizes sales potential, and ensures company-wide consistency and quality, ultimately leading to revenue growth.

Stakeholders

The key stakeholders required in defining the prospect to quote business process include sales and marketing teams, product managers, customer service representatives, and senior management.

Prospect to quote benefits

When your organization plans to implement technology solutions to assist with the prospect to quote process, there are several benefits that the solution can help provide. These key benefits should be used to determine if the solution is a good fit for your business and to drive the specific business requirements for implementing the solution.

Improved sales efficiency and effectiveness

The prospect to quote business process helps improve sales efficiency and effectiveness. It provides a structured approach for sales teams to follow, so that resources are focused on qualified leads and minimizing wasted efforts.

Increased revenue growth potential

The process also maximizes revenue growth potential by optimizing the sales process and ensuring that all potential customers are effectively pursued.

Consistent and high-quality customer experience throughout the sales process

Finally, the process provides a consistent and high-quality customer experience throughout the sales process, which helps to build trust and loyalty with customers and ultimately drive repeat business.

Next steps

If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to assist with your prospect to quote business processes, use the following resources and steps to learn more.

1. Dynamics 365 Sales Overview

2. Dynamics 365 Sales

Related resources

Use the following resources to learn more about the prospect to quote process in Dynamics 365.

• Dynamics 365 Sales User Guide

  This comprehensive user guide provides step-by-step instructions on using Dynamics 365 Sales, including managing leads, opportunities, and quotes.

• Dynamics 365 Sales Community

  The Dynamics 365 Sales community is a forum where users can ask questions, share knowledge, and learn from each other's experiences with the platform.

• Dynamics 365 Sales YouTube playlist

  This playlist from the Dynamics 365 YouTube channel includes several videos tutorials

Contributors

This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.

Principal author:

• Kody Wildfeuer | Senior Solution Architect, FastTrack for Dynamics 365