by Lisa Guerriero
Quosal offers quote and proposal automation software for companies of all sizes and industries. Established in 2006, it has 110 employees and is headquartered in WA. The company also operates a second location in FL. A privately-held company, Quosal declines to publicly disclose its revenue figures.
The firm provides sales managers with full visibility into the entire quoting process, eliminating backlog and reducing the time of the sales cycle. It integrates with key sales and business platforms like Autotask, ConnectWise, Dell, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Salesforce.
“Quosal allows sales professionals to create timely, accurate, and attractive quotes and proposals, with up-to-the-minute pricing, product specifications, product media, and more,” explains Kent McNall, CEO, Quosal.
Quosal Order Porter is a key part of the software platform. It allows users to create personalized, customer-facing Web pages for quotes and proposals. Customers choose from a range of product options, modify quotes in real time, and digitally sign contracts.
Visual Effects
This Spring, Quosal introduced an integrated personal video feature, allowing any user of the platform to deliver a video on their customer-facing pages. During the quote creation process, users can create the video without leaving the application and post it directly to the Web delivery page.
According to Quosal, the firm is the first to introduce a personal video option as part of a dynamically generated, online quote and proposal page. Within a few months of release, over 250 companies created thousands of personal videos. McNall views it as an extension of the online shopping cart experience offered by its Order Porter.
“We’re evangelizing a new technology and recommending to our customers that they formulate a real strategy around personal videos that includes aspects such as the appropriate levels of video quality and professionalism, the types of information communicated, and other such considerations,” he says.
The personal videos system is useable by any Quosal customer with a Web camera and a Google account. Videos are securely loaded as unlisted videos on YouTube. Final development took just a few weeks, though the firm worked on prototypes and early-stage planning for several years. It delayed finalizing and releasing the video feature until it felt that users’ technology could support it.
“We felt that to be successful we had to wait until all the foundational technology—cameras, audio, etc.—were not only ubiquitous but standardized and relatively bulletproof. When we felt the available technology reached that point, final development took a few weeks,” explains McNall.
Although the video feature targets all Quosal users, it’s ideal for customers selling remotely, without an opportunity for face-to-face interaction. McNall adds that sales teams with highly iterative sales processes—multiple versions of quotes and proposals—benefit from the chance to explain and review changes.
“We strongly believe that video is a core sales acceleration technology. We also believe that the personal touch can easily get lost in today’s sales processes, where sales representatives often don’t get to have a face-to-face meeting with their customers,” he notes.
Because of its faith in the effectiveness of video communication, the firm also has a video management system in development.
Customer-facing
The Quosal platform was developed with a focus on automation for the user and personalization for the end customer. It provides users with tools to customize the quote and proposal process, from review to option selection to e-signature contract execution. The personal video feature takes this approach a step further, giving sales staff a new way to connect with the client and explain changes and options. SW
