Product creation is adding a new tangible product to the product catalogs. Typically, a new product will have a unique identifier and include some or all of the following: standard pricing, promotional pricing, cost of goods, freight cost, category, subcategory, dimensions, weight, color, size, and other product parameters.

New product creation is most often done in the Billing & Rating catalog and should be the single source of truth that ties to the Customer-Facing Selling Catalog and the Provisioning & Fulfillment Catalog. The billing product catalog database is tied to the other systems’ product databases to tie images and written content, as well as inventory and channel availability.

The ability to create new products in the Billing & Rating catalog should be restricted to as few individuals within a company as possible because of the inherent risks that are present.

Much like products creation, new services creation should live in the Billing & Rating catalog with supporting data residing in the other systems’ databases.

Services can be built using flat-rate or unit pricing and can either be a one-time charge such as a connection fee, or a recurring source of revenue as with cellular service. A consistently communicated message, both with the sales team and the customer, must make the distinction whether the service being provided is a single charge, or a service being given at a unit rate (hourly labor charge, mileage, or GBs of data, for instance).

Product phasing refers to the transition from one offer to another by a customer. For example, a company may provide a 30-day trial of their product and, at the end of the period, automatically upgrade the customer into their base pricing plan unless the customer specifically declines.

Product phasing is common in B2B service organizations as a means to put a product or service into the hands of potential customers using free or discounted introductory offers. The method employed by companies to transition users into new or full versions of their offerings can have a marked effect on customer satisfaction and brand perception if the transition is handled in a transparent manner.

Conversion metrics and customer satisfaction indices are important indicators that should be closely monitored with product phasing.

Associating a price to a product or service is more than just a gross margin calculation. Standalone products and services have a base price but also often have tiered pricing based on methods of payment, terms and conditions, and a multitude of other potential parameters. Generally speaking, mature product catalog systems can use the data input during the quoting process to apply previously defined business rules to determine the net pricing.

Products and services pricing in large service-provider organization can be run through a decision framework consisting of dozens of potential factors to determine perceived worth.

A product or service’s parameters are its conditions or selling rules spelled out in a database. These parameters define the product or service, give it distinction from those other available products and services, and lays the foundation for the business rules engine.

Parameters may define where geographically a product is available to sell, which other products and services it may be combined with, associated products and services available for cross-selling, and wherein the up-sell hierarchy it lives.

Parameters are also key to business reporting, as selling performance is looked at from both a bottom-up and a top-down perspective. Parameters provide the granularity to allow for actionable reporting.

These sales processes are the central methods for increasing average revenue per user, an essential growth metric for most businesses using a recurring revenue business model. These businesses also focus heavily on annual contract value.

Up-selling is the process of selling more of a particular service. For example, moving from 6 MB internet speed for $25 per month to 18 MB for $45 per month is a typical up-sell.

Cross-selling is when a customer purchases a separate product or service in addition to what they had originally anticipated buying. For example, if the customer originally intended to buy internet service, but the sales representative convinced them to purchase phone and cable services too, the sales representative successfully performed cross-selling.

Expansion is the process of broadening the selling engagement with the customer to additional locations, business units, or channels. This process is not independent of up-selling and cross-selling, but it refers to specifically growing the size and buying power of the customer. For example, if a sales representative is selling software to the accounting group at John Deere in Missoula, MT, and they expand the sale to include the sales team plus two other locations, they have achieved expansion. A good CPQ application assists this process by allowing many child accounts, groups, and locations to be quoted at once.

The combination of up-selling and cross-selling is the primary method of driving more revenue within an existing customer base. Another common phrase is wallet share. Many enterprise clients have a goal of increasing the wallet share from their customer base, which is often done through up-selling, cross-selling, or both. The concept of bundling or packaging is a method for accelerating an up-sell, cross-sell, or both.