Zilliant - Detailed Review
Sales Tools
Zilliant - Product Overview
Zilliant Overview
Zilliant is a leading provider of AI-driven sales and pricing optimization solutions, particularly focused on the B2B sector. Here’s a brief overview of what they offer:
Primary Function
Zilliant’s primary function is to help businesses optimize their pricing and sales strategies using advanced data science and artificial intelligence. Their software aims to drive financial growth by providing actionable insights on who to call, which products to pitch, and what prices to quote, thereby improving sales execution and revenue.
Target Audience
Zilliant’s target audience includes large and medium-sized B2B companies, especially those in industries such as manufacturing, distribution, high-tech, and industrial services. These companies typically have more than 1,000 employees and over $1 billion in revenue.
Key Features
Price Management and Optimization
Zilliant offers tools that enable pricing teams to manage price lists efficiently, adjusting prices based on cost changes, regional factors, discounts, or business rules. Their AI-powered optimization engine provides recommended price ranges for individual customers based on key attributes like industry and customer size.
Revenue Intelligence
This feature helps sales teams identify data-driven opportunities and focus on high-revenue activities. It empowers teams to make informed decisions that drive revenue and enhance customer satisfaction.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote)
Zilliant’s CPQ solution simplifies the quoting process, shortening deal cycles and enhancing the buying experience.
Real-Time Pricing Engine
This feature provides a scalable and highly available API service for real-time price calculations and delivery.
Deal Management
The platform includes deal management capabilities that help establish and manage quotes, increasing sales and revenue.
Customer and Market Insights
Zilliant’s software analyzes vast amounts of transaction data to provide actionable insights, enabling companies to respond to market changes in real-time and maximize profitability.
Overall, Zilliant’s solutions are built to help B2B companies transform data into actionable intelligence, driving financial growth and improving sales execution through data-driven pricing and sales strategies.
Zilliant - User Interface and Experience
User Interface Upgrades
Zilliant has been continuously improving its user interface, as evident in the Winter 2025 release. This update includes a Beta version of an enhanced UI experience, which builds upon the improvements introduced in the Summer 2024 release. The new interface features refreshed account, product, and quotes areas, along with significant improvements to task workflows in these areas.
Ease of Use
The interface is user-friendly, with features such as simplified addition and deletion of fields in CPQ objects. This can be done in just a few clicks, making it easier for users to customize and update columns in agreements and products.
Browser and Display Recommendations
For an optimal experience, Zilliant recommends using the Google Chrome browser, as it works best with this platform. Additionally, using a large monitor or the browser’s zoom function can help view more data at once. The full screen button, located near the top right of the display, provides even more room to view data.
AI-Driven Features
Zilliant’s Sales Tools, such as Zilliant CPQ, incorporate AI to enhance the user experience. For example, the AI-driven Pricing Guidance in Zilliant CPQ helps sales reps close deals faster without eroding profit. The platform also includes an AI assistant in the self-service experience, which assists users in finding products by scanning through vast product catalogs and technical documentation, providing intelligent product recommendations.
Agreements Management
The Winter 2025 release introduces comprehensive agreements management capabilities in Zilliant CPQ. This includes streamlined workflows for creating, negotiating, and revising customer price agreements, along with AI-driven pricing recommendations to evaluate agreement quality. The system also ensures the accuracy of future orders through role-based access management and approval flows.
Feedback and Customization
Zilliant encourages user feedback to refine and improve its products. Users can easily switch between the new and classic user interfaces, allowing them to choose the experience that works best for them. This flexibility, combined with the ongoing improvements based on user feedback, contributes to a more personalized and efficient user experience.
Overall, Zilliant’s user interface is designed to be intuitive and adaptable, with a focus on leveraging AI to streamline processes and provide actionable insights, making it easier for users to manage and optimize their pricing and sales strategies.
Zilliant - Key Features and Functionality
Zilliant Overview
Zilliant, a leader in pricing lifecycle management, integrates advanced AI and data science into its sales tools to enhance various aspects of the sales process. Here are the key features and functionality of Zilliant’s AI-driven products:
AI-Driven Pricing Guidance in Zilliant CPQ
Zilliant CPQ includes AI-driven pricing guidance that accelerates the approval process and reduces the time to quote. During the quoting process, sales representatives see visual indicators (red, yellow, or green lights) next to each line item in the quote, indicating whether the price meets margin or other business requirements. This immediate feedback ensures that prices are aligned with business goals, preventing deal erosion and streamlining the approval workflows.
GenAI Pricing Analytics
This new product, set to be released later in 2024, provides rapid insights into the full impact of pricing details for products and customers. GenAI Pricing Analytics helps companies react quickly to cost and pricing changes, ensuring that pricing strategies are executed effectively across the organization.
Zilliant AI CPQ Assistant (Beta)
Embedded in the CPQ workflow, this AI assistant uses generative AI to assist sales users through natural language search. It offers targeted recommendations, product comparisons, and technical support, enabling sellers to make more informed decisions and reduce search times. This feature enhances the sales experience by providing quick and accurate product information.
Self-Service AI Assistant
The self-service AI assistant in Zilliant CPQ allows users to interact with an AI-driven system to find products and complete purchases without needing extensive product knowledge. Users can provide prompts, such as “Show me the forklift with the largest engine,” and the AI assistant will scan through product catalogs and technical documentation to return intelligent product recommendations. This feature simplifies the self-service shopping experience and ensures users get their questions answered quickly.
Revenue Intelligence in CPQ
Zilliant has integrated its Revenue Intelligence capabilities directly into Zilliant CPQ and the Commerce experience. This integration provides sales teams with smart sales actions and product recommendations to increase deal size or sell excess inventory. Customers can also benefit from Revenue Intelligence-powered product recommendations through self-service channels, enhancing their overall experience.
Advanced Product Search and Matching
Zilliant CPQ now includes advanced product search capabilities, allowing users to input specific characteristics and receive more tailored product recommendations. This characteristic-based search and Open API support improve usability and help users discover relevant products more quickly.
Dimensions Information for Quote Accuracy
The system captures essential dimensions and unit data (such as gross weight, net weight, volume, and size dimensions) directly from the ERP system and synchronizes it into the Product Detail screen. This ensures accuracy in freight charge calculations during the quote creation process, streamlining operations and improving data accuracy.
Integration with Existing Systems
Zilliant solutions seamlessly integrate with various business applications, including Salesforce CPQ, Oracle CPQ, SAP CPQ, Salesforce Commerce, SAP Commerce, and ERP systems like SAP and Oracle. These integrations enable smoother workflows, shorten implementation times, and ensure that pricing and selling recommendations are highly relevant and market-aligned.
Conclusion
These features collectively enhance the efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness of the sales process by leveraging AI to provide real-time insights, automate critical pricing processes, and improve customer satisfaction.
Zilliant - Performance and Accuracy
Evaluating the Performance and Accuracy of Zilliant’s AI-Driven Sales Tools
Performance
Zilliant’s solutions have demonstrated significant performance improvements for their clients. For instance, IMI Precision Engineering, a global leader in motion and fluid technologies, saw a 125% revenue lift from won opportunities after implementing Zilliant IQ. This solution helped simplify business complexity, equipped sales reps with actionable intelligence, and drove profitable growth. Additionally, there was an increase in sales win rates, customer retention, and expansion, along with the elimination of manual sales processes and an increase in sales productivity. Another example is Pro a Pro, a French foodservice distributor, which achieved B2B sales growth with actionable customer insights provided by Zilliant Sales IQ™. This led to a steady increase in same-customer sales of 5% to 15% and improved organizational trust, resulting in bigger commission checks for sales reps.Accuracy
The accuracy of Zilliant’s AI-driven tools is a critical factor in their effectiveness. Zilliant’s predictive sales analytics solutions continuously identify and deliver opportunities for customer growth and retention with high accuracy. For example, more than 90% of the insights generated by these analytics are accepted by sales teams, indicating a high level of trust and accuracy in the insights provided. Zilliant’s AI-driven pricing guidance in their Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) solution also ensures accuracy by providing real-time pricing insights. This feature includes a stoplight visual system that instantly indicates whether each discount meets margin or other business requirements, helping sales reps make accurate and profitable quotes.Limitations and Areas for Improvement
While Zilliant’s solutions have shown significant benefits, there are a few areas that could be considered for improvement:Integration and Adoption
Implementing AI-driven solutions can be challenging, especially in organizations with outdated manual processes. Zilliant addresses this through strategic change management and agile implementation processes, but the success of these efforts can vary depending on the organization’s readiness and culture.Data Quality
The accuracy and effectiveness of predictive analytics and AI-driven insights are heavily dependent on the quality and completeness of the data used. Ensuring that the data is accurate, up-to-date, and comprehensive is crucial for optimal performance.User Experience
While Zilliant’s solutions aim to enhance user experience through features like AI assistants in self-service channels, the ease of use and user adoption can vary. Continuous feedback and improvement in the user interface and experience can help in better engagement and utilization of the tools. In summary, Zilliant’s AI-driven sales tools have demonstrated strong performance and accuracy, leading to significant improvements in revenue, sales productivity, and customer retention. However, successful implementation and ongoing improvement depend on factors such as data quality, user adoption, and continuous feedback. Zilliant - Pricing and Plans
Pricing Structure Overview
When it comes to the pricing structure of Zilliant’s AI-driven sales tools, the available information does not provide a detailed breakdown of different tiers or plans. Here are some key points that can be gathered:No Free Version
Zilliant does not offer a free version of its software.Paid Version Starting Price
The paid version of Zilliant starts at a nominal price of US$1.00, but this does not indicate a tiered pricing structure or specific features associated with different plans.No Free Trial
There is no free trial available for Zilliant’s software, which means potential users need to commit to a paid plan without a trial period.Features and Capabilities
Zilliant’s pricing software includes several key features such as:- Managing multiple price lists and adjusting prices based on market conditions and business rules.
- Analyzing the impact of price changes and publishing prices to ERP, CRM, and CPQ systems.
- Prebuilt pricing scenarios and cost passthrough strategies.
- AI-driven recommendation engines for optimizing prices based on demand, seasonal changes, and competitor prices.
- Price simulation engines to test various pricing scenarios.
Conclusion
Given the lack of detailed information on pricing tiers and specific features per plan, it is clear that Zilliant’s pricing model is not publicly outlined in a way that distinguishes between different levels of service or feature sets. For precise details, it would be necessary to contact Zilliant directly or consult their sales team. Zilliant - Integration and Compatibility
Integration and Compatibility
Zilliant’s integration and compatibility with other tools and platforms are key aspects of its functionality, particularly in the context of its AI-driven sales tools.Salesforce CRM Integration
Zilliant offers a pre-built integration with Salesforce CRM, which enables seamless interaction between the two systems. This integration allows you to link Salesforce opportunities to CPQ quotes, creating multiple quotes and flagging one as primary. This helps in identifying the final accepted quote and updating the Salesforce opportunity for accurate forecasting. The integration uses Mulesoft connectors for unidirectional synchronization of account and contact information from Salesforce to Zilliant, facilitating bulk and delta updates.Embedded UI Components
The Salesforce managed package provided by Zilliant includes pre-built UI components that allow users to work on quote objects directly within Salesforce. This integration enables users to create and edit quotes through accounts and opportunities entered in Salesforce, without the need to switch between platforms. Users can also update opportunities in Salesforce using Groovy script extensions.ERP, CAD, and eCommerce Systems
Zilliant CPQ seamlessly integrates with existing ERP, CAD, and eCommerce systems. This integration ensures access to the latest product and warehouse data, as well as customer information, when building configurations and creating quotes. The multi-level data integration with ERP backends keeps data from product inventory, financials, and customer details up-to-date and readily available.AI and Data Science Platforms
The Zilliant IQ Platform, which supports Zilliant’s CPQ and pricing solutions, integrates advanced AI and machine learning capabilities. It allows users to build and operationalize data science models using Prediction Engines, which support a wide range of algorithms such as Random Forest, Neural Net, and Natural Language Processing. This platform also provides a configurable Job Workflow interface for scheduling and executing data processing tasks.Real-Time Data Access and Analytics
Zilliant’s platform integrates with high-speed, columnar databases and supports real-time data access and analytics. Users can filter, drill down, and customize reporting, and access analytics directly or embed them in other applications. The platform also supports visual analytics powered by Tableau, allowing for detailed and interactive data exploration.AI-Driven Pricing and Sales Tools
Zilliant’s Price IQ and CPQ solutions are integrated with AI-driven pricing guidance. These tools provide sales representatives with visual indicators and recommended price ranges for each customer, helping to ensure that prices meet margin and other business requirements. Additionally, a self-service AI assistant is integrated into Zilliant CPQ to provide intelligent product recommendations and assist in completing purchases.Conclusion
In summary, Zilliant’s tools are designed to integrate seamlessly with a variety of systems, including CRM, ERP, CAD, and eCommerce platforms, ensuring a cohesive data flow and enhanced functionality across different business processes. The integration of AI and advanced analytics further enhances the capabilities of these tools, making them highly compatible and effective in various business environments. Zilliant - Customer Support and Resources
Contact and Support Channels
Zilliant provides multiple contact channels for customer support. You can reach out to their headquarters in Austin, Texas, or their international offices in the UK, Germany, France, and Italy. The contact details include phone numbers and physical addresses, allowing you to choose the most convenient method for your needs.
Product Documentation and Resources
Zilliant offers comprehensive product documentation that answers common questions about their solutions. This includes detailed guides on how to use their Quick Start for Agreement Management, which covers topics such as score calculations, metric customization, data import, and multi-country support. This documentation helps users troubleshoot and configure their systems effectively.
Integration and Customization Support
For more complex requirements, Zilliant’s implementation team is available to assist with data integration, custom metrics, and additional features. They can help integrate third-party applications, such as PDF generators, and configure the system to support multiple units of measure, different policy types, and additional approval rules.
AI-Driven Tools and Guidance
Zilliant’s AI-driven pricing guidance, embedded in their CPQ solution, helps sales reps close deals faster without eroding profit. This includes an AI assistant in the self-service channel that assists users in finding the right products by scanning through vast product catalogs and technical documentation. This feature ensures that users can get their questions answered quickly and complete their purchases efficiently.
Training and Community Events
Zilliant also hosts events like the MindShare conference, where they highlight new innovations and bring together leading minds in pricing. This provides an opportunity for customers to learn about the latest features and best practices in using Zilliant’s solutions.
By leveraging these support options and resources, customers can maximize the benefits of Zilliant’s AI-driven sales tools and ensure a smooth and effective implementation process.
Zilliant - Pros and Cons
Advantages of Zilliant
Zilliant offers several significant advantages, particularly in the realm of sales analytics and revenue optimization for B2B companies.Price Optimization and Management
Zilliant excels in managing the entire pricing lifecycle, including CPQ, price management, and optimization. This helps businesses address margin and revenue leakage effectively.Sales Insights and Revenue Growth
The platform provides prescriptive insights into sales workflows, CRM applications, and eCommerce channels, helping to expand the value of each customer interaction. It also offers features like sales forecasting, performance tracking, and deal management.Predictive Analytics and Opportunity Identification
Zilliant’s AI-driven solutions identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, predict customer churn, and highlight areas where customer spend is declining. This enables sales teams to take proactive actions to boost revenue.Customer Segmentation and Lifetime Value
The platform helps in segmenting customers and analyzing their lifetime value, allowing businesses to focus on the most valuable relationships and maximize revenue from existing customers.Integration and User Productivity
Zilliant’s Revenue Intelligence integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, CRM systems, or homegrown solutions, minimizing the number of tools sales teams need to manage. This enhances employee productivity and inter-departmental collaboration.Competitive Edge
By turning data into actionable insights, Zilliant helps B2B companies gain a competitive edge in the digital economy. It enables personalized and intelligent eCommerce strategies, driving cohesive sales efforts across all channels.Disadvantages of Zilliant
While Zilliant offers numerous benefits, there are some potential drawbacks to consider:Integration Challenges
Some users have noted difficulties in integrating Zilliant with other data sources within their company, which can hinder decision-making processes.Reporting and Visualization
There is a need for enhanced reporting and visualization capabilities to make the data more accessible and easier to interpret for all users.Learning Curve
Although Zilliant integrates well with existing systems, there may still be a learning curve for sales teams to fully utilize its advanced features and AI-driven recommendations. Overall, Zilliant is a powerful tool for B2B companies looking to optimize pricing, enhance sales insights, and drive revenue growth. However, it is important to consider the potential integration and reporting challenges when implementing the platform. Zilliant - Comparison with Competitors
When Comparing Zilliant’s AI-Driven Sales Tools
Zilliant’s Unique Features
- AI Integration Across Pricing Lifecycle: Zilliant is integrating AI across its pricing lifecycle management solutions, including a new product called GenAI Pricing Analytics. This tool provides rapid insights into the full impact of pricing details for products and customers.
- AI-driven Pricing Guidance in Zilliant CPQ: Zilliant’s configure-quote-price solution, Zilliant CPQ, now includes AI-driven pricing guidance. This feature helps sales representatives ensure quotes align with revenue targets and reduces price discrepancies, accelerating the approval process and preventing deal erosion.
- Self-Service AI Assistant: Zilliant CPQ will also feature a self-service AI assistant that responds to user prompts, provides intelligent product recommendations, answers questions, and helps complete purchases. This assistant simplifies the self-service shopping experience by scanning through vast product catalogs and technical documentation.
Competitors and Alternatives
Eversight
- Eversight offers AI-powered software for revenue management, trade marketing, sales, pricing, and merchant teams. It provides analytics and diagnostics, similar to Zilliant, but with a broader focus on revenue management and trade marketing. Eversight’s tools are geared more towards optimizing pricing and promotions across various channels.
Klearly
- Klearly focuses on revenue growth software, operating in the sectors of sales, marketing, and customer success. While it does not have the same level of AI integration in pricing lifecycle management as Zilliant, Klearly’s tools are more oriented towards overall revenue growth strategies and customer success initiatives.
7Learnings
- 7Learnings offers a machine learning-based pricing solution specifically for online retailers. This SaaS solution maximizes profits and revenues but is more specialized in e-commerce pricing optimization compared to Zilliant’s broader B2B pricing lifecycle management.
Other AI Sales Tools
Exceed.ai by Genesys
- Exceed.ai is an AI conversational marketing tool that automates lead qualification, meeting scheduling, and lead re-engagement. While it is not specifically focused on pricing lifecycle management, it is valuable for sales teams looking to scale without increasing headcount. Exceed.ai’s features include AI-powered conversations, meeting scheduling, and lead qualification, which can complement Zilliant’s pricing-focused tools.
Salesforce Einstein
- Salesforce Einstein integrates with the Salesforce CRM to provide AI-powered insights, content generation, and automation. It helps manage pipelines, identify leads, and predict sales outcomes. While Einstein is more comprehensive in its CRM capabilities, it does not specialize in pricing lifecycle management like Zilliant does.
Summary
Zilliant stands out with its deep integration of AI across the entire pricing lifecycle, offering unique features such as GenAI Pricing Analytics and AI-driven pricing guidance within its CPQ solution. For companies needing specialized pricing management with AI, Zilliant is a strong choice. However, for broader sales and revenue management needs, alternatives like Eversight, Klearly, or tools like Exceed.ai and Salesforce Einstein might be more suitable depending on the specific requirements of the business.
Zilliant - Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions about Zilliant’s Sales Tools
What is Zilliant CPQ and what industries does it serve?
Zilliant CPQ is a configure, price, quote (CPQ) platform specifically designed for B2B manufacturers and distributors. It is used in various industries such as medical devices, construction, automotive, aerospace, industrial equipment, engineering, electrical equipment, and wholesale ecommerce. The platform helps these businesses create personalized quotes for highly configurable products and integrates with existing ERP, CRM, CAD, and eCommerce systems.How does Zilliant CPQ integrate with other systems?
Zilliant CPQ seamlessly integrates with existing ERP, CRM, CAD, and eCommerce systems. This integration ensures that the latest product and warehouse data, as well as customer information, are always available when building configurations and creating quotes. This multi-level data integration helps maintain a cohesive data flow between sales, product, engineering, and finance teams.What are the key features of Zilliant CPQ?
Key features of Zilliant CPQ include real-time visualization and showroom, native CAD and map integrations for dynamic configuration, automated rule and constraint management, interactive costing and pricing tools, instant document generation, access to 3D virtual catalogs, and smart selling features. These features help in creating custom quotes, streamlining the sales process, and enhancing customer satisfaction.How does Zilliant Price IQ optimize pricing?
Zilliant Price IQ is an AI-powered price optimization solution that helps set the right prices for the right customers by measuring each customer’s willingness to pay. It provides transparent and flexible pricing models, allowing price managers to add constraints to ensure alignment with revenue and profit goals. The system predicts the impact of price changes on revenue and provides clear price guidance that both pricing and sales teams can trust.Can Zilliant CPQ handle multi-country businesses?
Yes, Zilliant CPQ supports multi-country businesses. The Deal Manager and Agreement Management modules allow for creating agreements in different currencies, converting prices to the correct agreement currency, and displaying values in both the agreement currency and the corporate currency. Additionally, the system supports translation of messages, controls, and labels into local languages.How does Zilliant Price Manager streamline pricing processes?
Zilliant Price Manager acts as a single source of pricing truth, helping pricing teams manage multiple price lists, adjust prices based on market conditions and business rules, and analyze the impact of price changes. It eliminates the need for manual data management by centralizing pricing data and allows teams to publish prices directly to ERP, CRM, and CPQ systems, ensuring cross-functional alignment and pricing consistency.What are the benefits of using Zilliant’s smart selling features?
Zilliant’s smart selling features, such as product bundling, smart recommendations, and guided selling workflows, empower sales teams to upsell and cross-sell more effectively. These features help increase the average deal size by suggesting additional or alternative products based on the customer’s selections and guiding representatives towards optimal product configurations.How does Zilliant CPQ enhance the customer experience?
Zilliant CPQ enhances the customer experience through interactive visualizations and self-service purchasing. The real-time showroom allows customers to see exactly what the end product will look like, and 3D virtual catalogs enable immersive, interactive product presentations. This helps in better engaging potential customers and more effectively communicating the product’s features and benefits.Can Zilliant CPQ automate document generation?
Yes, Zilliant CPQ can automate document generation. Sales teams can instantly generate a bill of materials (BOM), request for quote (RFQ), quote, sales proposal, or contractual agreement based on product configurations. Automated approval workflows enable routing these documents to the right team members for review and approval, improving sales collaboration and speeding up the quote-to-cash process.How does Zilliant CPQ handle automated rule and constraint management?
Zilliant CPQ allows businesses to set predefined rules and constraints for product configurations. These rules, including compatibility rules, manufacturing constraints, and regulatory requirements, are company-specific and easily updated. The automated system ensures every configuration is viable, eliminating costly mistakes and speeding up the sales process. Zilliant - Conclusion and Recommendation
Final Assessment of Zilliant in the Sales Tools AI-Driven Product Category
Zilliant stands out as a leading provider of AI-driven pricing and sales optimization tools, offering a comprehensive suite of features that can significantly benefit various industries, particularly manufacturing, distribution, high-tech, and industrial service companies.Key Benefits
- Revenue Optimization: Zilliant’s dynamic pricing capabilities allow businesses to optimize prices in real-time based on market conditions, leading to higher sales and profit margins.
- Efficiency and Automation: The software automates complex pricing and quoting processes, reducing manual workload and enabling sales teams to focus more on customer engagement and closing deals.
- Customer Satisfaction: Personalized pricing and faster quote generation enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing a more responsive service.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Advanced analytics provide actionable insights, enabling businesses to make informed pricing and sales strategies based on accurate data.
- Competitive Advantage: AI-driven pricing strategies help companies adapt quickly to market changes and customer demands, staying ahead of competitors.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Zilliant’s solutions are scalable and flexible, accommodating increased data volume and complexity without compromising performance. This makes it suitable for both small startups and large enterprises.