The workflow automation that has long served as a major hallmark of Essent promotional products software is even stronger heading into 2015.

Related: Overview of new features from Essent.

Self-service Provides Sales Reps More Time to Sell

New self-service quoting frees up sales reps to do what they do best: sell.

End-users can now email quotes to themselves after they configure the product on the distributor’s website.

That means sales reps are freed from creating and communicating the quotes because the end-user is empowered to handle it, giving gives sales reps more time to sell.

Do a Hundred Things, All at Once

Say you’re selling sweatshirts. You have 10 sizes. And there are 10 colors. Once you account for all the different combinations it’s all of a sudden not just 10 sweatshirts -- you actually have 100 products to manage and list on your ecommerce website.

With Essent, it’s easy to manage it all. The key is Matrix Products.  Any two elements, such as size and color, can be defined to create a Matrix. Then the entire Matrix then can be updated simultaneously. If a product comes in 10 sizes and 10 colors and a description changes, for example, the description of all 100 items can be updated from one screen.

Now the power of the Matrix has been applied to product surveys. The survey questions that are used to configure a product can now be applied to the entire Matrix. So a user can literally configure 100 products at once.

Additional Automation to Relieve Staff

Another time-saving new function: Sales orders now can be automatically created with the completion of a survey.

Answering the survey questions configures the product and, at completion, optionally creates the order.

The automation once again saves time for staff who would otherwise have to create the orders themselves.

Read about more new features from Essent.