Cut Costly Quote-To-Cash Errors
with Tango
Quoting, ordering, invoicing, and fulfillment are the heart of your company’s revenue machine. To get it right, Sales, Finance, and Operations teams have to work in sync across multiple complex processes and systems that are changing constantly. And if you get it wrong, you’re left with chaos.
Keep reading to see how four revenue operations leaders unblocked their biggest quote-to-cash bottlenecks with real-time enablement and automation.
Featuring insights from 👇
Joey Papania
Senior Manager, Sales Enablement
Bettina Sparks
Business Operations Manager
Tom Reddington
Sales Operations Manager
PROBLEMS
More money, more problems
The stakes are high. One little mistake in your quoting process can have many downstream consequences. No matter how much automation you build into your systems, success still hinges on a few critical decisions and inputs from humans on your team.
“Our reps provide a lot of value to our customers. Helping them select the right bundles. Guiding them through custom orders. We’ll never be able to automate that.” -Bettina
At Cox, order details are critically important. If a proposal isn’t executed perfectly, Fulfillment will kick it back to be revised. A single data entry mistake can cost Cox up to 48 hours and derail a customer project. Even the slightest delay can set off a domino effect, leading to wasted inventory, lost revenue, unhappy clients, and reputational damage.
One little mistake and the order gets kicked back which delays the customer 24-48 hours, messes up our inventory, and creates a lot of work for our operations team.” -Joey
But are you setting your salespeople up for failure? If you’re running this traditional training playbook, it might be the cause of your quote-to-cash problems:
Quote-to-cash problems
Provide webinar or classroom training weeks or months before they can use the information.
Expect reps to memorize hundreds of products, SKUs, and bundles
Expect reps to memorize dozens of steps across complicated, constantly-changing software
Ask reps to rummage through your knowledge base to find information when they’re stuck
Ask reps to filter through dense documentation and long videos to find answers
Ask reps to message a co-worker or open a ticket to ask for help and then wait
Bettina, Joey, and Tom found a better way to enable their teams and reduce costly quote-to-cash errors. Keep reading 😁
Want to watch instead of read?
Current crm & cpq training
What’s wrong with quote-to-cash training?
The Forgetting Curve
It’s hard enough to remember everything about your customers, product and competitors. On top of that, to get quote-to-cash right, reps have to remember the precise formatting requirements for every field in every form.
“It’s an age-old problem. Within an hour of going through an onboarding training or classroom session, employees forget 50% of what they learned if they don't apply it. Within 24 hours, that number goes to 70%. And within a week, they’ll only retain about 10% of what they learn.” -Joey
Research continues to reproduce a study from the 1880s that shows learned information evaporates sharply, with significant loss in just a few days. In other words—the forgetting curve is real. And without proper reinforcement strategies, Cox Media University was at risk of fighting a losing battle. Joey shifted back into sales mode and asked himself:
“What happens in two months when I actually have to apply the training and I forget what you taught me? Because that’s the reality. What happens when I was on PTO and I missed the training to begin with? What happens in six months when we hire someone new?’” -Joey
Groundhog Day
Given the reality of the Forgetting Curve, learners are destined to ask the same questions on repeat—trapping trainers in an endless loop.
“I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Media consultants and fulfillment partners can’t be expected to memorize every software process. But that means my team is constantly being tapped for the same questions, over and over and over again. And the more FAQs we have to answer, the less time I can spend on more strategic initiatives for the business.” -Joey
Sales operations has important work to do. But the gravity of interruptions to answer questions and fix issues pulls you away from your strategic work.
“Ideally we would spend 10% of our time on ad hoc support but in reality it’s 30-40%” -Bettina
Non-selling time
Nobody wants another training. Just make this stuff super easy for me so I can spend more time selling. -Joey
The worst thing you can do in response to your quote-to-cash problems is more traditional training:
more traditional training
Pull Sales and Fulfillment away from their work
Overwhelm everyone with information that can’t be applied ASAP
Ask them to remember it all
Force them to search for answers when they inevitably forget
Bury critical instructions in a Knowledge Base
Rely on static job aids to keep up with evolving processes
Make people wish someone would just show them what to do
Ignore the fact that no one has time to train
We’re onboarding new reps and I have to get them operational ASAP so I can’t afford for them to spend weeks training.
THE SOLUTION
How Tango helps
See how Bettina, Tom, and Joey found a better way to reduce quote-to-cash mistakes and help salespeople spend more time selling.
Document quote-to-cash processes
with Tango Click-to-Create
A feature that makes it easy to create a step-by-step walkthrough just by clicking through a software process once. (Code, no. AI, yes ✨)
Pin knowledge in-app
with Nuggets
A feature that allows you to pin knowledge in your business applications where employees need it. Like a post-it note 📌
Guide employees step-by-step
with Guide Me
A feature that makes it easy for users to perfectly complete software processes. (by following the orange Tango box on their screen. 🧡)
Analyze performance
with Insights
A feature that shows problem areas and collects feedback on specific steps from users while they’re following a process. 💡
PHASE
Document quote-to-cash processes
Tom, Bettina and Joey all faced the same two problem when starting their quote-to-cash projects:
1. It’s difficult to capture knowledge from many process experts across sales, finance, and fulfillment teams.
2. Once you have the knowledge, it’s time consuming to assemble the steps into clear documentation that everyone can understand.
Without standardizing every step up front, it’s nearly impossible to scale the process and measure success.
With Click-to-Create, sales ops professionals can:
Document any process in minutes by clicking through the steps once
Redact sensitive information automatically with Tango Secure Blur
Assign access to SOPs by department, based on Active Directory groups
Tango’s “Click-to-Create” feature, which was a welcome change from capturing workflows manually with SnipIt and PowerPoint (and dragging every last screenshot and text box into line). 😵💫
“I can’t fathom how much time it saved us, especially on our more complex workflows. What would have taken me days took me minutes to create. We wouldn’t have been able to update all of our processes as quickly as we did without Tango.” -Bettina
Example Tango workflow showing the steps to create a quote in Hubspot CRM ⬇️
PHASE
Pin knowledge in-app
Having been sellers themselves, Tom and Joey are well-acquainted with the frustrations of getting stuck halfway through a process and:
1. Being unable to remember how to do an essential task (👋, Forgetting Curve)
2. Going back through a notebook from a software training three months ago
3. Killing an hour rummaging through a Knowledge Base trying to find a 5-second instruction
Ken’s takeaway? SEARHC wasn’t doing a great job of making it easy for software users to get unstuck on their own.
“Instead of stopping what I’m doing, going to Confluence, scanning around to find what I need,, Tango puts it right there.” -Tom
“We do all this training, we store it all, and end users are like, ‘We need it now.’ So I started asking myself, ‘How do we put the user closer to the information they need so they can learn within the flow of work?” -Joey
Enter Nuggets (the equivalent of a digital Post-It note, marked by an orange Tango "T").
Enter Nuggets (the equivalent of a digital Post-It note, marked by an orange Tango T).
Curious about how that works?
Curious about how that works? Cox Media’s most widely appreciated Nugget explains the order statuses in their quote-to-cash system. Inside every campaign under the status report, there are 10-15 statuses. These statuses had been tripping up everybody up. Nobody could remember what they meant. But the campaign status field matters because, “It’s like a Domino tracker. Fulfillment partners use it to tell media consultants where their pizza is and when they’re going to get it.”
With Nuggets, sales ops pros can:
Pin knowledge to the exact button, element, and screen in your CRM and quoting tools
Include Tango walkthroughs and text to provide hand-holding and guidance “in the flow of work”
Link to Knowledge Base articles, videos and Learning Management System courses for additional context
Joey could have put together a job aid and sent it out through Marketing via email. But, as he said:
“Where are reps going to put a one-sheeter? How will they remember where to find it in three weeks when they actually need it? It’s way more effective for me to create a Nugget with a linked spreadsheet defining every status and and pin it directly onto the status button. Reps can click on the orange T and quickly understand where their campaign is in the fulfillment process, without having to go find that information elsewhere.” -Joey
📌 Note: Nuggets don’t replace Knowledge Bases. They actually make them better. With Nuggets, Joey is able to layer and link his Knowledge Base into the system, so users don’t need to hunt for answers.
“We’re no longer just saying that we’re bringing training into the flow of work. We’re actually doing it with Tango.” -Joey
It only took Joey a few minutes to create the Nugget and fill everyone in (and sidestep 98349834 status update questions):
PHASE
Guide employees step-by-step
When learning software processes, research shows that a majority of people prefer having an expert walk them through it.
“When you ask people how they want to learn a system, they always say ‘just tell me what to do’ because nobody wants to watch a long video or read a wordy document.” -Joey
But that kind of hand-holding typically:
1. Takes sellers away from selling
2. Is not scalable and leads to mistakes
3. Comes with delays and dependencies on experts (Groundhog Day)
Bettina only needed to see one demo of Tango’s “Guide Me” feature to know she had found something new.
Guide Me literally trains them in while they're working and eliminates that seat time. They learn it while they’re doing it.” -Bettina
According to Stephanie, Guidance removes the confusion that used to lead to a lot of back and forth.
Teach their entire sales organization to use their new quote-to cash system on day one with zero training sessions
Add a little lightbulb with context and suggestions at every step in a process to make sure employees know what to do
Help reps avoid data entry mistakes so their proposals don’t get rejected or sent back with “change requested” status
“Orders aren’t getting kicked back to them anymore because we show them exactly what to do at each step.” -Joey
PHASE
Analyze performance
Tom, Joey and Bettina believe in continuous improvement but optimizing processes is often easier said than done. It isn’t only tricky to carve out the time. It’s equally hard to:
1. Get visibility into which processes aren’t being used successfully and why
2. Incentivize busy end users to flag opportunities for improvement (instead of just finding a workaround)
3. Create a built-in feedback loop between reps and operations
4. Instantly edit existing workflows to keep them current
With Tango Insights, they no longer have to guess which reps need extra and help and which processes have bottlenecks that need fixing. Instead they get
Adoption analytics broken down by process, business applications, department and individual
Specific steps in specific processes where people are drop off
Comments from reps about how to improve steps where they’re stuck
“I’m in the middle of onboarding a new class of sales reps and I can see adoption of our CRM processes is happening faster than with previous new hire classes.” -Tom
The fact that end users can comment directly on a Tango workflow means they can influence and optimize processes. They can tell us if they see a process that's not working, and then we can go in and make the updates. It’s like an instant feedback mechanism.
BUSINESS OUTCOMES
Transform quote-to-cash in 90 days
Tom, Joey, and Bettina reported that Tango paid for itself in three months by impacting three dimension of their business
Increased sales productivity
Convincing end users to embrace new software, systems, and processes is tough. Most people don’t like change. But with Tango, Joey was able to level with Sales and Fulfillment early on and say:
“Look, you're going to go through this training. You're going to be introduced to all of these new systems. And I want you to feel good knowing that I don't expect you to remember any of it. Because you won't. It's too much. It's overwhelming. You don’t have to memorize anything. There’s going to be a tool [called Tango] that's going to guide you through every task when you get there.” -Joey
Employees involved in Cox Media’s quote-to-cash process report feeling less stressed, making fewer mistakes and being more productive because they have the information they need, when they need it.
“Visually, watching the tension drain away was the biggest thing. I could see people going, ‘Okay, I don’t have to remember everything. I’m going to have all of this hyper-relevant knowledge ready for me, right where and when I need it.’” -Joey
Decreased process errors
By standardizing every phase of the quote-to-cash process, Tango help Jasco:
Streamline order forms
Decrease data entry mistakes
Reduce pushback from the fulfillment team
Recover lost sales productivity
Accelerate orders an average of 48 hours
Employees involved in Cox Media’s quote-to-cash process report feeling less stressed, making fewer mistakes and being more productive because they have the information they need, when they need it.
Tango helped us eliminate 90% of errors from our custom ordering process.
Reduced training costs
Purchasing Tango felt like a no-brainer to Joey. But he had to get funding approval directly from the CFO of Cox Communications.
“I asked for several headcount to go into all of our field territories to train everyone on the new quote to cash system. And they laughed at me. So I was like, ‘All right, well, what if I could do it for a fraction of the cost? That was the business case I made to get budget approval for Tango.” -Joey
After introducing their upgraded systems, Joey got a company-wide shout out from the CFO for “introducing a cutting-edge technology at a significantly lower cost than originally budgeted.”
Talk to Sales
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