Frequently Asked Questions about Product Finders, Configurators, and Sales Playbooks (FAQ)
Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions about guided selling and digital advisory solutions.
Challenges Faced by B2B and B2C Companies – and How Digital Advisory Solutions Can Help
How can I sell complex, technical products more effectively?
Digital advisory solutions help present even complex products in a simple and understandable way. Through intuitive questions, they guide customers or sales staff through the consultation and provide suitable product recommendations. The rule-based logic ensures that recommendations perfectly match the use case — delivering consistently high-quality advice.
How can I guide customers toward a purchase decision despite a large product selection?
A large product range can lead to overwhelm and abandoned purchases (choice overload). Digital advisors analyze customer requirements and guide them directly to the right product recommendation. This saves time and makes the decision easier—for both end customers and sales teams.
How can I configure products with many variants without errors?
Digital product configurators enable the real-time customization of complex products to individual requirements. They automatically account for all dependencies between components and ensure that only valid, manufacturable configurations are created.
FAQ on Digital Advisory Solutions
What is Guided Selling?
Guided Selling describes the process of leading customers through a structured consultation with use case-oriented questions. Its goal is to deliver the best product recommendation and make the purchase decision easier. Typical guided selling solutions include, for example, product finders, product configurators, and sales playbooks.
Benefits
- Consistently high consultation quality
- Relief for the sales team
- Faster decision-making for the customer
What is a Product Configurator?
A product configurator enables customers to customize tailored products individually. Intelligent logic ensures that only technically feasible and error-free combinations are created.
Benefits
- Individual product customization in real time
- Error-free configuration thanks to validation logic
- Reduces manual errors in the sales process
- High customer satisfaction through tailored offers
What is a Product Finder?
A product finder is a guided selling solution that leads customers to the right product through targeted questions. It helps avoid choice overload, improves consultation quality, and increases conversions.
Benefits
- Avoids choice overload
- Efficiently guides customers to the right product
- Provides personalized product recommendations for every use case
What is a Product Selektor?
A product selector works similarly to a product finder. The focus is also on targeted product selection—ideal for large assortments.
What is Sales Enablement?
Sales Enablement refers to a sales strategy in which sales employees are equipped with the right tools, content, and sales arguments to sell products or services more effectively.
Benefits
- Faster onboarding of new sales employees
- Consistent product messaging across the entire team
- Simplified introduction of complex products
- Unified sales strategy
What are interactive Sales Playbooks?
Interactive sales playbooks are digital guides that consolidate sales strategies, talking points, and best practices. They help sales representatives access relevant content during consultations and provide customers with suitable product recommendations.
Benefits
- Access to relevant content in real time
- Consistent presentation of products and services
- Training and coaching in sales
- Live use during the sales conversation
FAQ on Guided Selling & Product Finders
How do digital product advisors generate precise product recommendations?
Digital product advisors are based on rule-based or AI-supported recommendation logic. They analyze user inputs and match them with product data to generate precise product recommendations. This way, each customer receives a result tailored exactly to their requirements.
Which industries are digital advisory solutions suitable for?
Digital advisory solutions are suitable for a wide range of industries—from fashion and lifestyle to industrial sectors. In consumer goods, the focus is often on large assortments and choice overload, while in industry, product complexity and modularity take center stage. Product finders help navigate large assortments, whereas configurators are ideal for complex, variant-rich products.
How easily can a digital advisor be updated to accommodate new product variants or price changes?
Digital advisors can automatically incorporate updates from product data feeds. New variants, products, or prices are directly integrated into the consultation process.
How can I improve lead quality on my website using a digital product advisor?
Digital product advisors improve lead quality by collecting valuable information about the user profile during the consultation. Since the user profile along with the product recommendation is forwarded to the sales team, the sales representatives already know in advance which product the customer is interested in.
How can cross-selling products be integrated into a digital product advisor?
Digital product advisors offer the ability to contextually integrate cross-selling products into the consultation process. Based on users’ selection decisions, suitable accessories, complementary products, or services can be automatically suggested.
FAQ on Product Configurators
Can a product configurator handle complex product logic, dependencies, and exceptions?
Product configurators can reliably handle complex logic, dependencies, and exceptions. They take into account technical conditions and configuration rules to allow only valid configurations—even for highly modular products.
How do digital product configurators ensure that a configuration is error-free and manufacturable?
Digital product configurators use validation logic that permits only allowable combinations. This ensures that only error-free and manufacturable configurations are created—eliminating risks for sales and production.
Which tool allows efficient configuration of product bundles and product sets?
Digital set configurators or bundle builders allow efficient assembly of product sets. These tools consider dependencies between components and automatically generate bills of materials as well as individual price calculations for the entire set.
How can configuration results and leads be automatically transferred to third-party systems?
Digital product configurators provide interfaces to CRM, ERP, and PIM systems. This allows configuration results and leads to be automatically transferred to third-party systems for further processing.
FAQ on Sales Enablement
How can the knowledge of my product experts be scaled and made accessible to all sales employees?
Digital product advisors are based on the knowledge of your product experts and product managers. This expert knowledge is systematically organized and made available to all sales employees in a structured format. This way, every team member can provide consistent, high-quality advice—regardless of their experience.
How can I ensure that less experienced salespeople can provide competent advice?
Digital product advisors, such as interactive sales playbooks, support even less experienced sales staff. They guide them through the sales conversation and enable professional consulting from day one.
How do I ensure consistent product messaging and presentation across the entire sales team?
Interactive sales playbooks ensure that all sales employees use the same content and sales arguments. They guarantee consistent product presentation and maintain uniformly high consultation quality.
How can I efficiently onboard sales partners?
With a sales playbook, external sales partners have anytime access to product knowledge and can confidently and convincingly present products.
FAQ on Integrating Digital Advisory Solutions
How can a digital advisor be integrated with my existing CRM, PIM, or CPQ system?
Digital advisory solutions like product finders or configurators come with standardized interfaces to CRM, PIM, and CPQ systems. This allows product data, leads, or configuration results to be easily and automatically transferred.
FAQ on the Scalability of Digital Advisory Solutions
How well can a digital advisor be adapted to regional markets?
Guided selling solutions can be flexibly adapted to regional markets—including different assortments, currencies, languages, and pricing logics. This makes them ideal for international rollouts.
Does the advisory solution support multiple languages for international markets?
Digital advisory solutions support multiple languages. Content can be translated manually or automatically to ensure consistent consultation worldwide.
FAQ on the User Interface of Digital Advisory Solutions
Can I maintain the content of the digital advisor myself—for example, using a no-code solution?
With the excentos Workbench, content such as questions, rules, or product recommendations can be maintained using a no-code interface. This enables easy and fast adjustments—even without programming skills.
Are there AI-powered features that assist me in creating a digital advisor?
excentos offers AI-powered features to partially automate the creation of digital advisors. The AI assists in generating questions, mapping product logic, and integrating product data.
Do you have any questions about our solutions?
Get in touch with us. We look forward to hearing from you!