The digital revolution has transformed every aspect of how a sales rep operates. 

This is especially true when it comes to sales and customer visits. As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, leveraging the latest sales tools and technology for your customer visits is no longer an option. 

In many ways, it has become a necessity for staying ahead of the curve as innovation is the key to outperforming your competition. 

So let’s check out 5 surefire ways to leverage technology for smarter customer visits.

Showing up late to a sales meeting can mean the end of a business relationship. To ensure you are on time to your next one, it’s vital for any field sales rep to make use of a sales route planner.

Optimizing routes saves sales reps time. With the correct route planner tool at your disposal, you can efficiently navigate through your daily meetings, prioritize your most important customers, and plan your day from there. 

Going from one sales visit to another can be taxing, but with the right tech, you can plan your drive, and your day, effortlessly. Integrating technology for route optimization ensures that you or your sales representatives reach their destinations on-time, and often with enough time left over to add new meetings to your schedule. 

This not only saves valuable time but also enhances professionalism and reliability. In the long run, this approach improves customer interactions.

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Technology enables real-time updates to routes, ensuring that representatives are informed of any changes instantly. Whether a meeting is rescheduled, a new appointment is added, or there are unexpected delays, representatives can adapt to changes promptly. 

This adaptability prevents the inconvenience of arriving late and demonstrates a commitment to professionalism.

Optimized sales routes can reduce driving times by 20%. This can make sure that sales representatives reach their sales visits faster. Less driving not only saves time but also results in cost savings for the sales team. 

Reduced fuel consumption, decreased vehicle maintenance costs, and lower operational expenses contribute to a more cost-effective sales operation. Organizations can redirect these cost savings towards other essential aspects of the business or invest in further sales initiatives.

There are a multitude of route planning tools on the market today, but the best one for field teams is Badger Maps.

Badger Maps is a route-planning app that allows field teams to automatically plan, route, and maximize their time in the field, cutting down driving time by 20%. 

Offering important features that are crucial to field teams such as route optimization, map visualization, and automated data gathering from the field, Badger Maps helps field teams save time on their daily planning, maintain better relationships with customers, and stay organized.

Sales reps often have 20+ customers to visit on a given day. Relying on simple mapping tools such as Google Maps to create the best multi-stop route, will end up causing more problems than it’s capable of solving. Google Maps just simply won't cut it for complex routing needs. 

This is where Badger Maps comes in. Badger Maps is the best route optimization software for field sales reps as it allows them to create sales routes with up to 120 stops. 

With Badger Maps, the average sales team of 10 reps saves $11k per year in gas. They also sell $936k more the year they start using the app, as they use that extra time to meet with more customers. With their routes with multiple stops created for them, this will give sales reps the opportunity to easily plan for the week ahead and spend more time with customers, increasing chances of revenue growth.

Badger Maps can also help field sales teams mobilize their CRM, providing them with access and the ability to update customer info directly from the field. 

By integrating Badger Maps with your existing CRM, sales reps working in the field can visualize all of their data on an engaging and interactive map. This shows reps exactly where their customers are and how best to prioritize them, all from a mobile device.  Badger Maps can integrate with leading CRMs such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, HubSpot, Insightly, NetSuite, and many more.

If you’re a sales rep and are looking to leverage technology and make the most of your customer visits, the best mapping and routing tool is Badger Maps. 

Sign up for a free trial today or schedule a demo to learn how you can start leveraging technology for smarter customer visits today!

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Generating leads is the first step in any sales pitch.

Finding potential customers, however, is a numbers game. Employing innovative tools and platforms can significantly improve efficiency. It can also improve the effectiveness of lead generation.

Automated dialer software allows sales teams to reach a large number of potential leads in a short period. Dialing a list of names manually is inefficient. Auto-dialers significantly increase sales efficiency. They do this by minimizing idle time, allowing agents to focus on live connections. An automated dialer streamlines sales visits by efficiently narrowing down potential customers. 

Integrating social media into your sales and marketing strategy is important. Social media platforms offer a direct line to engage with customers who often visit these sites in a relaxed, open-to-anything kind of mood. 

The latest studies tell us that there are 4.76 billion social media users worldwide. With the average user online for 2.5 hours a day, social selling is an increasingly effective way to increase your customer base and boost your sales figures.

Social media creates real-time customer engagement. Compared to emails and calls, social media messaging has a casual feel to it. Contacting customers for potential sales pitches and visits through these channels can at times be more effective than more traditional techniques.

Listen to this Outside Sales Talk podcast episode with Cindy McGovern to learn how to create, live, and sell your personal brand!

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There is no more classic use of technology in sales than the cold email. 

The cold call’s younger sibling, cold emails is still a staple in generating leads. 

What’s great about emails is that unlike traditional calls and social media chats, emails are generally less time-sensitive. Chatting through email can be done as you check emails. Adding pictures through emails can entice customers effectively too.

In addition, sending out exclusive deals and promotions to customers can boost sales. Remember to keep tabs on customers through personalized emails to create amazing rapport. Customers appreciate when you take the time to research them and find out their interests. So make sure you personalize your email to give you the best chance of closing a deal and integrate a DMARC policy to ensure your email domain seems legitimate.

Of course, not everyone checks their emails every moment. Minus select circumstances, everyone however has their phone on hand. An estimated 7.1 Billion people use a mobile phone. So yeah, that's pretty much the world's entire population!

Mobile devices are a crucial touchpoint for sales interactions. Mobile correspondence, via calls, text, or messaging platforms, can prove useful. Breakneck deals can be closed in a single phone call. In addition, integrating mobile phone communication in CRM software can streamline communications.

Most importantly, using phones is essential for field sales. When you are on the go for a sales visit, you rarely have the chance to access a laptop. Chatting through phones with scheduling changes can make or break a deal.  

In any case, using your phone is one of the most essential sales tools. Carrying a mobile phone during sales visits is non-negotiable.

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Effective calendar management and scheduling are critical to successful sales visits. Planning potential meetings and sales visits can better improve customer relationships.  These are some ways technology can be used to improve calendar management.

Use calendar management tools to strategically plan sales visits and meetings. Consider factors such as customer importance, geographical location, and meeting objectives.

Make sure you implement the best sales tools that automate planning and reporting processes. This reduces preparation time significantly. Automated systems can create automated data reporting, preventing errors in scheduling and reports. This allows representatives to focus more on customer interactions and less on boring administrative tasks.

New calendar apps can be easily accessed through multiple devices. This allows flexibility in checking your scheduled meetings. It also allows sales managers to keep track of the planned routes of sales representatives. 

These features lead to a more organized and adaptable approach to scheduling and managing sales visits, enhancing sales efficiency. 

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Most sales representatives are drowning in tools. On average, a standard sales rep has to manage 10 digital sales tools to close on a single deal. Some of these tools include different communication channels and analytical software.

To streamline processes and tools, an advanced CRM integration is necessary. Integrating CRM systems can create a unified platform with a cohesive and efficient workflow. This allows sales teams to focus more on important matters. These include building relationships, closing deals, and planning sales visits. Get to the meat of the matter with CRM integration.

To implement CRM Integration effectively remember to:

Take stock of all existing tools. Keep tabs on what is often used and how. 

Contacting customers through multiple channels? Integrate that in a CRM. Keeping a unified way to view all your tools can prevent you from missing out on important information.

After assessing the process, proceed with integrating software. Some common integrations include making a unified communication hub. Others include adding social media channels software and integrating access control permissions and security technologies.  

Integrating sales channels with custom map-based software can make planning routes of sales visits easier. It can also make creating customer profiles easier. For example, some tools allow input of customer information, such as phone numbers and addresses.

Check out this detailed list with the 10 best Sales CRM software available today!

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Tracking improvements over time can open the way to future improvements. Some key data to watch out for include sales rep efficiency and customer engagement. Time taken when doing the sales visit is also important to keep track of. 

Customize your data visualization to keep track of specific statistics. This can help you focus on which area of the sales process you want to improve.

In essence, it helps to overcome tool overload. Offering a unified platform boosts efficiency, productivity, and ultimately, revenue growth. This can improve customer interactions overall.

In the final stage of the sales process, closing the deal is the ultimate goal. Effective tracking of sales routes and managing the sales visit plays a crucial role in ensuring that this goal is achieved. Keeping track of successful sales visits and routes can make the difference between a lost opportunity and a closed deal. 

By keeping track of successful routes, sales reps can restructure priorities. These include raising or lowering a customer's priority for future sales visits. Platforms with automatic tracking can streamline this process. This makes sure future customer visits are more effective.

Advanced routing software can then re-optimize routes and enable more closed deals in the future.

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Embracing technology in every stage of the sales process is no longer a choice but a strategic necessity. The ever-evolving digital landscape offers powerful tools that can transform sales strategies, enhance customer interactions, and ultimately boost revenue.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, sales professionals who master these technological tools will undoubtedly stay ahead of the curve, outperform the competition, and forge lasting relationships with their clients.

About the author: Dan Martin is a digital marketing expert and has delivered effective, SEO-centric content marketing strategies to several clients worldwide. And with a focus on building content pillars to drive content that ranks, his goal is to consistently deliver high-quality content solutions that are scalable. Besides implementing innovative content strategies, 

LinkedIn: Dan Martin

Website: Contentmarketing.io