How to use a route planner to optimize field sales?

Route planning, in general, is the process of placing a list of field sales deliveries into a logical and effective order when going from one customer location to another. Real-time route planner software is used by businesses to find the optimum path for completing timely deliveries, attending client meetings on time, and more.

A route planner may contain capabilities such as fleet visibility, on-demand dispatching, driver feedback, real-time optimization, and machine learning enhanced routes in addition to the main route listing functionality. Let's imagine you're a field sales representative who needs to deliver your product to a list of potential consumers on schedule. However, you are fully oblivious of the consumers' new location when you visit them.

In this scenario, a perfect route planner may be useful because it discovers and gives you the best and most optimized delivery route journey accessible, thanks to its advanced internal capabilities.

How does Route Planning Affect Field Sales?

You can plan routes fast and professionally with route planning software. Supporting the sales team in creating and managing their daily sales routes will go a long way toward ensuring that they meet all of their customers' needs and do not miss any important touchpoints in order to maintain their sales numbers. Organizing the planning process to make sales personnel' routes more efficient and profitable saves time and money.

Route planning software allows you to plan routes quickly and professionally. It uses advanced location intelligence-based data technologies to model traffic and takes into account expected delays.

The salespeople's travel routes are planned to ensure that they not only get to their customers as rapidly as possible but also that they do so in the most fuel-efficient manner feasible. The sales crew on the field will benefit greatly from this program.

Planning sales routes can help you deal with complex issues, including unplanned downtime and unforeseen changes like last-minute customer appointments, bad weather, or traffic jams. During times of change and uncertainty, flexible, efficient, and productive route planning is especially critical for firms that rely on field salespeople.

What is the significance of route planning?

The Importance of a Well-thought-Out Strategy

A salesperson's day may not be entirely optimized if they don't take the right strategy. They may choose destination addresses on the spur of the moment or based on criteria other than ideal. They may hesitate to choose a destination in some instances. That means they're wasting time figuring out where they should go next.

Overall, the challenges listed above may make it more difficult for them to complete their daily activities on time, resulting in decreased productivity. It may result in missed appointments in the worst-case scenario. This not only results in the company's reputation being harmed, but it also means missing out on a possible chance. That is why having a strategy is so important. You can avoid all of those possible obstacles on a map if you have a strategy, making any effort spent managing logistics beneficial.

The Advantages of a Proper Implementation

You achieve several objectives by accurately mapping out your sales route planning. To begin, you can choose efficient paths. It will take less time to get to all of the destinations, allowing salespeople to devote more time to profit-generating activities.

Second, it streamlines a portion of the sales representative's day. They don't have to waste time deciding where and when they'll go. That's already figured out in the sales route plan. They can focus their energies elsewhere because they are spending less time deciding where to go. They'll be able to spend more time talking to clients or looking for new ones. They may devote more time to lead generation, allowing them to engage with more potential customers.

The third advantage is more organizational in nature. Sales insights for accounts, calendar integration, payment processing (such as Apple Pay and Google Pay), online access service, schedule by territory, track solutions, and resources are all available to field sales managers.

Finally, there can be support and learning for field salespeople, such as sales tips, sales process evaluations, training videos, and services like digital meetings, provided they are correctly implemented.

What is the process of using intelligent route planning software?

Traditional route planning software estimates travel time by calculating the distance between two fixed destinations. Route planning software that is intelligent takes into account a lot more variables. Multiple destination points, weather and traffic data, appointment slots, rep downtime, sales goals, and customer data from your CRM are just some of the options.

Here are three important ways intelligent sales routing software helps you improve your schedules.

It brings your data together to boost productivity and cut costs.

Commercial route planning software automates complex route planning to determine the most efficient routes between many locations, thereby increasing the productivity and efficiency of your mobile workforce. Multiple vehicles and client visits can be routed and scheduled using the software, which can accommodate factors such as rush hour traffic and unanticipated delays.

As a result, it's great for sales teams looking to optimize their time management and fuel efficiency.

Intelligent routing software also gives managers a holistic perspective of field sales performance, which helps them make better decisions and hold reps accountable. Managers can keep track of how visits affect the pipeline and broader business goals, automate mileage logging, and gain visibility into field rep operations while spending less time creating reports.

Creates routes based on capacity, priority, and/or geography from the ground up.

Mapping software that links with your CRM might help you make key business decisions. It enables you to visualize your clients on a map and determine where you need to deploy resources, ensuring that the right salespeople are in the right location at the right time. Let's imagine two salespeople are allocated to routes that are similar in terms of capacity and driving time. Each of these representatives, however, specialized in a distinct type of client industry. Intelligent sales routing software can assist you in creating optimized routes that place the right reps in the right meetings with the right clients, resulting in improved client service and more income.

Allows salespeople to make quick judgments on the fly.

Your teams can access critical information on the fly using cloud-based routing software. Reps can make judgments in the time based on client data, weather patterns, or traffic updates to help them get the most out of a day's work. It's a quick and easy way to calculate (or recalculate) routes, whether out in the field, at work, or on the road. With the stroke of a button on any mobile device or tablet, you can fill scheduling gaps or cancellations with nearby prospects.

Intelligent routing software, for example, can alter to accommodate last-minute changes the moment a customer scheduled for a morning appointment wants to postpone. Similarly, if a salesperson knows that spending a little more time with a specific customer will likely result in a significant opportunity, the salesperson can swiftly change the rest of the day's schedule to accommodate the extra time.

A Quick Overview of Route Planning vs. Route Optimization

Route planning and route optimization are included in all modern field sales force management software in today's technology environment. The practice of classifying numerous work locations in order to increase the pace of travel and deliveries is known as route planning. Route optimization entails much more than simply identifying and managing unforeseen events in a more efficient and logistical manner. It's also worth noting that many field sales force management software packages provide route planning as part of the optimization features. This is why they often appear to be the same, causing a lot of difficulty in recognizing that they are distinct in their own right.

Route planning is the process of designating a route on a map with a starting and ending location. This can also contain notes about any pauses that need to be made along the journey, if applicable. Route optimization, on the other hand, entails not just constructing a route but also trying to improve its efficiency. The objective is to see as many customers as possible while keeping travel time to a minimum.

Because field salespeople must give excellent service to their customers, they cannot devote all of their attention to travel time. Some customers will require more time in meetings than others. Path planning is a simple and effective routing application that gives field sales teams the fundamental information they need to find an efficient route. Path optimization, on the other hand, might supply them with a better and more accurate route, taking into account traffic, distances, fuel costs, and other factors. Route planning and optimization combined will provide you with the best possible travel route, taking into account that conditions change and modify accordingly.