How Sales Route Planning Boosts Field Sales and Increases Revenue

Are you taking the time to plan your daily routes, or are you winging it?

Route planning might seem like it should be a bit of a slog, but there are serious consequences to not optimizing your route correctly. For starters, your operational costs will unnecessarily increase. Your fuel costs will skyrocket. You will waste time traveling longer-than-necessary routes. 

The worst part is missing opportunities. Delayed or missed appointments or turning up at the wrong time ends a sale before it can start. And once you lose a customer, rarely, if ever, can you win them back.

Your entire business model rests on setting up your drivers for efficient routes, and that's precisely what we will discuss in this blog by answering the following questions:

• What is sales route planning?
• What are the benefits of route planning?
• What is route planning software?
• How could route planning software help my sales?

In the sales context, route planning is the sweet science of calculating the most efficient route for a salesperson to take during their working day. Route planning considers several factors before identifying the best route:

• Your starting point 
• The addresses you need to visit during a given time
• The overall distance you will travel
• Customer prioritization

If implemented correctly, a route planner can help you extract maximum value from every minute in the field.

When implemented correctly, a route planner can help sales teams minimize downtime, reduce fuel costs, and improve customer satisfaction by ensuring timely visits. Sales route planning allows salespeople to focus on what they do best - selling - leading to better results and higher revenues.

There are a multitude of different benefits to be gotten from route planning software. 

For starters, they minimize the time you spend on the road by calculating the most efficient route between stops. This will lower your fuel expenses, vehicle wear-and-tear, and operational costs, ultimately improving profitability.

How will it improve your profitability? By freeing up time, you can visit more customers and complete more tasks in a single day, with one company achieving a 22% increase in annual revenue thanks to using a route planner.

That's what Cutter & Buck achieved when they started using the Badger Maps route planner. They increased the number of meetings their reps could fit into their week, which naturally reflected sales figures.

When you have access to real-time traffic updates and alerts, you can always stay on the fastest, most efficient route. This helps you save fuel, adjust your schedules in advance (instead of last minute), and fit in more stops per route - even during heavy traffic.

Real-time traffic insights can also help optimize starting locations. For example, why should you drive to the office first if it’s faster and more efficient to begin your routes directly from home?

NCR Aloha representatives found that using Badger Maps led to a 25% decrease in their daily drive time and a 50% decrease in route planning time. Before Badger Maps, they would spend around three hours every week on route and meeting planning. They didn't have a secure online system to schedule appointments and organize customer data efficiently. 

Now, with Badger Maps, Aloha representatives can have their routes optimized and schedule more client appointments rather than wasting their time in traffic. 

Have you ever tried to visualize all your customers on a map? Static maps pinned on office boards are painful to update. Customer locations are visual and interactive on route planning software - just upload your most recent CRM data and get a geographic representation of your customers.

Why is this valuable?

• Helps uncover relevant customer trends that are impossible through spreadsheet analysis.
• Helps spot areas with low customer density, revealing potential explanation opportunities.
• Helps sales managers assign territories.

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Route efficiency isn't only about reducing travel time. Being on the fastest route is important, but the best routes maximize sales opportunities. Routing software allows your team to prioritize leads as they see fit. You can colorize your customers to - 

• See the current account status of all your accounts. 
• Understand where your highest-priority leads and customers are located versus your low-priority accounts.
• Organize your customers by the next step.

However, the key to closing a sale lies in knowing how and when to follow up effectively.

Badger Maps allows you to set up follow-up reminders to ensure you never miss a chance to reconnect with prospects. By prioritizing accounts based on the last time you contacted them, you can stay organized and consistent in your outreach.

This streamlined follow-up process ensures you always reach out at the right time, maximizing your chances of closing the deal. A strong follow-up strategy is essential for improving your work performance, and Badger Maps simplifies this step to help you close more sales efficiently.

With Badger Maps, you can integrate and mobilize your sales CRM software, giving you access to your important customer info directly from the field. You can sync and leverage data in your CRM, all from their phone.  Badger Maps can integrate with leading CRMs such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, HubSpot, Insightly, NetSuite, and many more.

An employee time clock app can also significantly enhance your sales efficiency by ensuring accurate work-hour tracking and schedule adherence. With real-time tracking and automated timesheets, you can better monitor employee performance, ensure timely client visits, and make data-driven decisions to refine your sales strategies. 

You can easily transform your outside sales thanks to the revolutionary benefits of route planning software.

The Badger Maps route planner reduces average drive time by 20% and frees up an average of 8 hours a week.  

Sign up for a free trial or schedule a demo to discover how this route-planning app can enhance your sales processes and strategies!

Author Bio: Jeremy Moser is co-founder & CEO at uSERP, a digital PR and SEO agency working with brands like Monday, ActiveCampaign, Hotjar, and more.

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