Sales route planning is essential for a successful sales strategy, especially for field sales reps.
It’s a complex process, but with proper planning (and the right application), both sales teams and independent reps can make the most out of every day in the field.
What is Sales Route Planning?
Sales route planning involves finding the most optimized route to conduct your sales appointments. This not only saves time but also reduces fuel costs.
Additionally, by intelligently organizing visits, field reps can free up time to see more clients or prospects in a given area.
The Purpose and Benefits of a Sales Route
Regardless of the market or sector, field sales reps often encounter the same challenges:
- The gap between the actual situation and the information recorded in the client portfolio, leading to poor communication in the field.
- Changes in the methods and technologies used by prospects and clients, leading to a misunderstanding of needs and missed opportunities.
- Gaps in the schedule, unforeseen events on the road, and rigid tools that prevent full utilization of the workday.
Pre-planned routes that remain flexible according to traffic, clients to visit, and even weather conditions allow field reps to stay efficient, even during periods of change.
Creating Sales Route Planning
You need to leverage technology. Consider using an Excel file, maps to manually plan your routes, or specialized route optimization software.
Having a good prospecting planning tool for yourself and your team can save time and enhance customer follow-up.
Use a Contact Management System
Managing your contacts is the foundation of executing successful sales route planning. You can use an Excel file or an app like Moovago to organize your contacts, addresses, and details. Categorize your contacts based on their stage in your sales cycle, the revenue they’ve generated, changes compared to previous periods, and the tasks assigned to them.
Map Your Customers
To be effective, you need to know where your customers are. Use a mapping tool to place them on a map and get a clear view of their locations. You can use Google Maps’ points of interest or an app like Moovago to keep track of your customer mapping.
Sort Your Contacts
Within your contact portfolio, determine factors to prioritize which contacts to visit first. For example, those who generate the most revenue or those you haven’t seen in a long time. Plan your route around these priority contacts.
With your customer mapping tool, identify the contacts you can visit within the same area and fill in gaps between appointments by visiting less critical contacts or conducting prospecting. Strive to continuously prospect while maintaining focus on your current clients.
Keep Your Customer Portfolio Updated
After completing your route, make sure to update the information in your Excel file or customer portfolio application. Keeping your data up-to-date is crucial for analyzing the situation and planning future routes. You can also note when the people you’ve visited asked you to return or call back.
If a client is unavailable, use that time to visit another client or prospect. Record all interactions and important information to facilitate ongoing customer follow-up.
How to Optimize Sales Route Planning?
Sales route planning should focus on the most important opportunities.
With this in mind, it may be necessary to optimize your sales route planning to prioritize the most profitable prospects or the most urgent visits.
Optimizing sales route planning involves taking it further by prioritizing stops, avoiding mistakes, and ultimately saving as much travel time and fuel as possible.
Specialized sales route software is often used for this purpose.
Choosing the Right Sales Route Software
The best software for you may differ from that of another organization. It should meet your business needs to create the perfect sales route planning. To do this, identify and list the main problems you and your sales team face daily:
- Are you missing opportunities because your reps are booking appointments with the wrong clients?
- Do you often have to completely rearrange your sales routes due to client cancellations?
- Are you falling short of your goals because you don’t have all the necessary information about your territory?
Based on your criteria and those of your team, choose the key features of the route planning software:
- Route creation,
- Suggesting the most profitable appointments,
- Interactive map,
- Customer portfolio management,
- Follow-up reminders.
Identifying these important features will help you make the right choice, saving time and generating more revenue.
What is the Best Sales Route Software?
We recommend using the Moovago app. This app is designed for field sales, allowing you to visually manage your customer and prospect portfolio using a map.
