How Multi-Stop Route Planning Can Boost Your Team's Productivity

For teams that spend a lot of time in their cars, such as those working in field sales or field services, multi-stop route planning can be a massive factor in how productive they are.

Even the smallest bottlenecks - poor traffic, limited driver availability, or delayed departure times - can cause a cumulative squeeze that results in late arrivals and unhappy customers.

The good news is that multi-stop route planning software can solve these problems for you. 

In this article, I’ll get into the how and why of multi-stop route planners. I’ll examine their benefits and drawbacks, and offer sound advice on implementing them to their full potential. 

A multi-stop route planner can be complex, so let me break down some of its core capabilities which will allow you to get a better understanding of how these efficient tools work. 

Multi-stop route planners use advanced algorithm systems to determine the most efficient order to visit multiple locations. Finding the most efficient route can be a complex calculation, because of factors such as distance, traffic, number of turns, etc. By automating this important aspect of your workflow, you can save money on gas, and generate more revenue due to increased time savings. 

John O’Kain, territory manager at NCR Aloha found that his team were able to grow their sales by 20% and saw a decrease of 25% in their daily driving time thanks to optimizing their sales routes.

At its core, multi-stop route planning software aims to create the optimal route for your delivery or sales routes - but that begs the question, what do I mean by “optimal route”?

Using a basic navigation app such as Apple or Google Maps will create the shortest route between locations. This is great if you're looking to simply get from point A to point B quickly.

Discover the advantages and disadvantages of using Google Maps route planner for multiple stops here!

A more sophisticated route planning software would allow you to customize your route based on various priorities. You can prioritize by the fastest route, which adjusts in real-time to dodge traffic jams, or by the most fuel-efficient path to help cut down on transportation costs. 

Alternatively, you might prioritize routes based on the importance of each stop, such as delivering urgent packages or visiting high-value customers first. These types of capabilities are not things regular route planners like Google or Apple can do.

You can also add a lot more stops than you can with Google Maps, which is limited to only 10 stops.

The Badger Maps multi-stop route planner allows you to create routes with up to 120 stops.

It gives you turn-by-turn directions, with the ability to set departure, arrival, and duration times for each stop, giving you a clear estimate of how early, or late, you’ll be to each location. 

You can colorize and filter your accounts, allowing you to quickly prioritize your best customers on an interactive map.

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A route optimization planner needs to be constantly monitoring the roads, which is why it’s hooked up to real-time traffic updates. 

For example, if a major accident blocks your planned route during a sales run, the system will immediately recalibrate to find the quickest alternative. Additionally, they can tell you to steer clear of known congestion zones during peak hours.

This approach has many benefits beyond simply crafting the most efficient route. For starters, your team won’t make risky maneuvers or be pressured into fast turnaround times. 

This can mean your field sales reps or service techs have more time with customers and won’t feel rushed when with them.

Plus, you can better keep your customers in the loop. You’ll be able to provide them with more accurate arrival time windows, something which can be the difference between average and excellent customer satisfaction.

Unless you offer it as a workplace benefit, your field salespeople will probably use their own smartphones or navigation devices. This risks the worst-case scenario where your driving route planner app may not be accessible to everyone in your team.

The best route planners should ensure compatibility across various operating systems, including all mainstream smartphones, tablets, and desktops. 

This facilitates instant communication amongst your team members: drivers, dispatchers, and managers. Let’s say one salesperson is under time constraints due to congestion—you could quickly get another rep to take their final call of the day.

The Badger Maps My Team feature is great for this. 

Managers can rebalance their reps’ territories and access or edit their routes at any time. Providing access to reps check-ins, territories, routes, and activity reports, managers can understand exactly what’s happening in the field and catch problems before they arise. 

Ready to invest in a route planning software? Check out our definitive list of the 10 best multi-stop route planners here!

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Multi-stop route planning can be super useful for sales logistics—i.e., optimizing the sequence of customer visits to maximize efficiency and ROI.

In this section, I'll explain the myriad benefits in more detail so you can decide how to apply these routing tools to your sales operations.

Field salespeople can only ever be in one location at any given time, and there are only so many hours in the week to move around. This means that strategic scheduling is crucial for maximizing impact.

Multi-stop route planners help by ensuring that visits are organized not only by geographic proximity but also by customer priority. 

For example, let’s say you have 100 customers in your territory. 10 of them are high priority. You could schedule your sales meetings with your most important customers in the same region on the same day - meaning you can provide more personalized attention without the lost time of long commutes.

It’s a win-win for everyone. Your customers’ needs will be prioritized, leading to increased loyalty and potential upsells and crosells. Shorter commutes mean drivers feel their work is more rewarding, which means higher employee retention.

One of the biggest benefits of multi-stop route planning is that it cuts down on unnecessary travel time. 

In an ideal world, you want your sales reps to spend 99% of their time with customers and just 1% on the road. That’s clearly impossible, but correctly utilizing a route optimization app is the closest you’ll get.

Reducing travel time is great for your business’s bottom line. It means lower fuel consumption, lower vehicle wear and tear, and more time that sales teams can dedicate to revenue-generating activities. 

When it comes to the financial side of things, many businesses employ simple accounting software to get an overview of their daily or weekly costs. These tools compile expenses from many sources (employee wages, fuel costs, or expected taxes) as well as cash flows (sales conversions). Think of it as the back-end to your route planning tool—helping you make decisions for optimal ROI.

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No matter how intimately your sales reps know a local area, they won’t know the traffic conditions until they drive through it on the day. This is where a sales route planner steps in to avoid frustration and delays.

For instance, your app for field sales could alert reps when a major accident has occurred in their area, advising them to spend longer with their current customer or to take their lunch break earlier in the day. The app will also make real-time adjustments according to your set parameters, removing the uncertainty of which alternative route to take.

A route planner is an essential piece of equipment for time management in sales. The primary advantage is that you can set specific time windows for each visit, ensuring that you can manage your days effectively.

For example, you might have back-to-back meetings across different parts of the city; a well-planned sales route minimizes downtime and travel, allowing for a seamless transition from one meeting to the next. 

If you meet a customer that’s allocated one hour of their time, you know exactly how long to make your sales pitch and when to end the conversation if a conversion looks unlikely.

Want to know how sales thought leader Jeb Blount manages his time? Listen to his Outside Sales Talk podcast episode to learn how ultra-high performers use time management to gain an edge!

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A sophisticated route planner should integrate with your sales CRM software. That way, when you record notes in a CRM, such as follow-up times or customer readiness to purchase, the route planner can use this data to optimize your daily itineraries.

This integration reduces the need for manual oversight and ensures that you visit customers at the most opportune times for engagement. For instance, if a customer indicates interest in a demo during a follow-up call, the route planner can adjust the schedule to prioritize this meeting.

The Badger Maps multi-stop route planner can help you keep track of who you need to reach out to by setting up follow-up reminders. 

The follow-up feature can take quick actions such as adding accounts to your route and creating check-ins as soon as you follow-up with them. A good follow-up strategy is key to closing deals. Badger Maps streamlines this step of the sales process.

To complete the tech stack, you may also need well-implemented accounting software for retail. By combining the data recorded on your CRM and route planning app, you can calculate the financial metrics you need to make informed decisions.

Modern accounting software solutions offer intelligent inventory management features contributing to your streamlined operation by offering accurate demand forecasting and advanced analytics. These powerful tools can help you stay ahead of fast-moving market conditions.

Multi-stop route planners are particularly useful for larger, geographically dispersed teams. That’s because the costs are much higher to travel between all of your customers, meaning there’s more potential for savings from route optimization.

It’s simple to understand. These planners ensure that routes are logically organized—you can plan sequential visits to customers located close to each other and avoid travel during peak traffic times.

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The best travel route apps are dynamic - meaning they change according to real-time visibility of route conditions.

A few consumer-grade applications, such as Apple Maps, offer advanced functionalities for real-time updates on traffic and weather conditions. You only need to tap on an incident marker to get a full description of the severity of a delay, such as an accident, road maintenance, or road closure.

That said, it doesn’t come with the advanced routing algorithms that you might want from a dedicated route optimization software. For example, if an urgent customer need arises (say, a product repair or replacement), the route planner can immediately upgrade the daily to-do list for a field service tech or sales rep to visit.

Additionally, if a sales rep takes a customer call and learns about an emerging opportunity, the route planner can adjust to allocate resources efficiently. Running everything through an online app means coordinating these changes, preventing an awkward situation where two reps may visit a client simultaneously. 

Thankfully, multi-stop route planners such as Badger Maps provide turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Waze, guaranteeing you will never be late to an appointment.

While standard navigation apps such as Google or Apple Maps provide basic directions, a dedicated route planner offers far more advanced capabilities tailored for sales logistics.

Adopting a sophisticated multi-stop route planning tool can transform how your business handles logistics, from improving delivery times to optimizing field sales routes. You’ll be far better positioned to meet the modern customer's needs and deliver a service that stands out in your industry. 

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