Optimizing Face-to-Face Sales Rep Performance

Last week I wrote about designing optimal territories.  However, even the best territory plan requires keen focus on meeting the right customers efficiently and executing a solid sales strategy. The next two steps in building a geo-enabled field productivity process work together to deliver new levels of efficiency and productivity. They are dynamic, optimized scheduling and multi-objective routing. Together, these technologies can increase customer visits by as much as 20% and improve overall results.

There are 5.7 million professional sales people in the U.S. who sell face to face or remotely. Outside sales reps, who primarily call on accounts in the field, are projected to be about 55% of that number in the U.S. by the end of 2019; and about 58% in Europe. Field reps attain quota more often than internal sales reps.  It makes sense that enterprises are increasing the number of field reps and dedicating the most seasoned, highly-valuable sales resources to working face-to-face with customers.  Helping these reps be efficient and productive is imperative for enterprises.

Optimized scheduling and routing, based on Salesforce data, prioritizes customers and prospects and recommends field plans that reduces drive time and eliminates wasted time between meetings. With these optimized schedules and routes, field reps increase the total number of sales calls and meet with more of the right customers. Working with hundreds of enterprises and thousands of reps, we’ve learned identified three ways that automated scheduling and routing help reps succeed.

  1. Prioritized customer and prospect meetings with essential data on mobile. Using data from Salesforce, reps are able to identify the opportunities which are most likely to close at the greatest value. Having this data available on mobile ensures that reps are making the right sales calls to the right customers within their territory.

  2. Visualization of customers and prospects on a map. Reps can visualize customers and routes to more effectively prepare for productive days in the field. Access to live Salesforce data and insights ensures they walk into each meeting with the information they need. They can automate mobile data capture to keep Salesforce up to date with just a few clicks. These reps are able to easily execute their plan and fill any “dead” time with nearby leads or neglected accounts.  

  3. Continuously optimized routes and schedules that span multiple days, multiple constraints.  Field reps with large geographic territories often plan multi-day trips, need to adjust schedules on the fly as meetings are cancelled, and need to accommodate constraints like set meeting times or traffic windows. Reps can increase productivity with integrated scheduling and routing that accommodates these constraints, and that recommends the most efficient schedules and route as meetings change.

Automated scheduling and routing capabilities make it easy for field reps to maximize productivity every time they’re on the road. They’re able to meet with more of the right customers, reduce wasted time, and improve overall performance. MapAnything is used by hundreds of enterprises like Shaw Industries, RBG, Airgas, Mohawk Industries, P&G and Essence Coffee to plan and execute their field sales calls. The result is an increase in meetings, greater productivity and improved efficiency.

By: Ken Kramer

Chief Marketing Officer

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