Q&A with Ross Buel, Vice President of Sales and Business Development
What is AQ Analytics and why was it created?
Ross Buel: It was created as a built-in sales reporting feature to meet one of our objectives — to provide products that will continue to improve efficiencies in the sales process for the FES industry. It’s a sales tool that provides visual reporting through charts, tables and data in real time. It allows industry decision-makers to make informed decisions based on the quoting activity done by reps, the dealer salesforce, or by manufacturers’ in-house salespeople.
What’s unique about AQ Analytics?
RB: It’s unique in that it’s a real-time sales tool. Analytics uses real-time data from the section in AutoQuotes
Projects that generates the pricing and bid quotations for customers. You’re not just getting a run of the mill sales report from an ERP system but a program you can customize. View only the data you want to by year, by quarter, by project or by item.
Ross Buel, VP of Sales and Business Development, AutoQuotes. Photo courtesy of Chris McFall, Creative Video Producer, AutoQuotesIf you use AutoQuotes, you can access Analytics, simply click on the Analytics tab inside AQ. Sales professionals can see all their projects. Quoting data can go back seven years, so you can get a historical picture of your quoting activity. Administrators can see data at a company level to help inform marketing and sales strategies. All this without additional integration tools or investment.
What’s the best way to use Analytics?
RB: It’s easy to use. Once you select the Analytics tab at the bottom of the AQ screen, take a quick tour of the different views and do a deep dive on some of your information. Then you can better decide how you want to customize your dashboard.
If you want to look at what your sales reps are quoting or if you’re interested in quoting activity by customer, you can customize that dashboard in a way that really helps you as a manager, or as the person that’s doing the quoting, see what’s important.
Managers can see company pricing and quoting activity to ensure approved markups are being applied. You can also look at your preferred brands quoted volume and adjust marketing strategies.
AQ Analytics is beneficial to all FES professionals — whether you’re a dealer, a rep or a manufacturer.
How can Analytics help reduce costs or increase revenue for a company?
RB: It can increase revenue by targeting those products or model numbers that are most successful in the quoting. Manufacturers can identify those products that have the most quoting activity, and best allocate marketing resources to those products — or to the products not being quoted. You can track if salespeople are selling your preferred products and in turn increase your revenue. Obviously, if you’re selling them, you’re going to be
making more money.
Employee using AQ Analytics. Chris McFall, Creative Video Producer, AutoQuotesAccess to data is critical. Analytics gives you that access in a clear way. It helps make the sales process more efficient … advancing your AutoQuotes sales tool for an advancing FES industry.
