How to Choose the Best Sales Route Planning Software for Your Business

Introduction

Sales reps today are facing more pressure than ever to maximize their time and productivity. Picture this: you’re a sales rep with multiple stops scheduled for the day, but between traffic delays, a potential customer who cancels, and an inefficient route that makes you retrace your steps, you only hit a fraction of your appointments. Frustrating, right?

That’s where sales route planning software comes in—it helps streamline your day, ensuring you spend less time driving and more time closing deals.

But all route mapping software is not created equal – after all, you could just use MapQuest if you wanted a free option…Yes, it’s cumbersome to manage a team with and completely unconnected to other tools like your sales intelligence software or CRM, but’s free.

Today, we’ll explore route mapping solutions for sales teams. We’ll talk about the features and benefits of these tools and how this technology can transform your day by giving you the most efficient route to success.

What is Sales Route Planning?

At its core, sales route planning is about finding the most efficient route for sales reps to connect with prospects. This involves organizing stops in a way that minimizes driving time and maximizes face-to-face selling opportunities.

For example, sales teams can prioritize high-value prospects and clients while considering factors that might make the route inefficient.

Route planning software takes into account many factors, but a few of the most important are customer data, geography, and even tracking live traffic updates. By using this technology, your field sales team can cut down on wasted time, visit more prospects, and ultimately close more deals.

With the right tools, planning multiple stops becomes easier and more productive.

Benefits of Route Planning Solutions

Effective route planning offers significant benefits for your sales reps and sales teams alike. Here are a few key advantages:

• Increased productivity: Reps spend more time with prospects and less time on the road.
• Reduced driving time: Optimizing routes means less fuel consumption, lower fleet and maintenance costs, lower insurance premiums (depending on your carrier), and less time spent in traffic.
• Higher deal closure rates: The more efficiently reps reach prospects, the more opportunities they have to close deals.
• Cost savings: Reducing travel time and fuel costs boosts your bottom line.

Let’s do some quick math. According to MapMyCustomers, the average sales rep spends 21 hours behind the wheel each week. Now, if you’re paying your sales rep an industry average of $76,040 per year salary, and they spend 53% (21% of a 40-hour workweek), you’re paying $40K a year for your sales reps to sit behind the wheel.

The average route mapping solutions can save you 10-20% on drive time, while better solutions can save up to 30% and also lower fleet costs associated with driving by almost 15%.

Needless to say, with the right tools, sales route planning can become a strategic asset that can add zeros to the bottom line.

Key Features of Route Planning Software

When picking the right route planning software for your team, consider features that boost efficiency and simplify route management. Here are some things to look for:

• Route mapping based on capacity, priority, and geography: Ensure your reps hit the most valuable and important stops first.
• Real-time updates: Keep your team informed with live traffic data and schedule changes.
• Manager reports: Track the performance of your field sales reps and gain insights into their activities.
• Integration with CRM systems: Streamline processes by syncing customer data with route plans.
• Automated logging: Reduce manual data entry and increase the accuracy of customer information.

These are all key features of the top tools on the market.

How to Choose Route Planning Software

Choosing the right sales route planning software requires you to evaluate what your team needs and wants. Here’s how to do it:

1. Assess Your “Current Pain:” Start by identifying the biggest problems your sales team has with their current route planning. Is it traffic unpredictability or the current software not integrating with your CRM? Knowing these pain points will help you prioritize the features of new software.
2. Define Your Goals: Set clear goals for what you want the software to do. Whether it’s reducing travel time, increasing sales calls, or improving customer relationship management, having goals will help you choose software that aligns with your business strategy.
3. Test Multiple Options: Take advantage of demos or even free trials (if they’re available) from various software providers. Get your team involved to understand usability, features, and how well the tools integrate with your existing tech. Getting feedback from actual users will give you valuable insights.
4. Costs vs Benefits: Consider the total cost of ownership, including subscription fees, implementation costs, and potential savings from increased productivity. Balance these costs against the benefits to see what the ROI could be.
5. Check User Reviews and Recommendations: Look for testimonials, case studies, and reviews from other sales teams that have used the software. Hearing from others will help you gauge if a particular solution is effective and reliable.

Great mapping solutions average a 1- 3 month ROI, so you’ll be able to quickly discover whether the tools are working well for you or not.

The Top 10 Route Planning Software Options

Ready to optimize your routes? Here are some top tools that can help you achieve maximum efficiency:

1. Convex: Convex is actually far more than a sales route planning software. With built-in property intelligence software, Convex is more of an all-in-one prospecting, outreach, lead generation, and sales platform created specifically for industrial and commercial services sales teams. With built-in route mapping and sales route planning, Convex can not only help you find the most effective routes, but it can also help your team locate new business opportunities in their path!

2. Badger Maps: A favorite among outside sales reps, this tool helps reps plan optimized routes, manage customer data, and reduce travel time.

3. Salesforce Territory Mapping Solutions: With Salesforce as your CRM, Territory mapping solutions automatically optimize routes, assign territories to sales reps, and track performance metrics.

4. Map My Customers: This tool offers a combination of route optimization, planning, and real-time traffic updates. It’s also highly customizable and integrates with your existing CRM.

5. SalesRabbit: This sales enablement tool offers both route optimization and field data collection, making it a comprehensive solution for sales reps on the road.

6. Routific: If you have a smaller sales team, this tool is perfect for optimizing routes and managing schedules in real-time.

7. Veloxy: This sales planning software focuses on creating optimized routes and helping teams close more deals by offering detailed analytics.

8. SPOTIO: Another popular option for sales teams, this tool offers both route planning and tracking features, as well as integration with CRM systems.

9. Maptive: Known for its advanced features, Maptive offers robust route planning and territory management capabilities.

10. GeoPointe: Ideal for larger teams, this software provides route planner functionality along with excellent territory management and data visualization features.

Best Practices for Sales Route Planning

To get the most out of sales route planning, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. First, don’t underestimate the power of data. By using customer information and route planners that rely on analytics, you can let the numbers guide your decisions.

Prioritizing high-value clients is another smart move—after all, your time is best spent with the people most likely to close deals.

And when it comes to scheduling, traffic matters! Real-time updates will help you navigate rush hours and unexpected delays, ensuring that your team arrives on time.

Lastly, nothing works perfectly from day one. Regularly check how your field sales reps are performing and be ready to adjust their routes for even better results.

Choosing the Right Route Planning Software

Choosing the best sales route planner doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does require a thoughtful approach. Here are four simple questions to help you make the right choice:

1. Start by assessing your sales team size and figuring out what kind of features you really need. Are you after basic route planning, or would you benefit from advanced capabilities like territory management?
2. Once you know what you’re looking for, dive into the software’s features. Does it offer real-time updates, optimized routes, and smooth integration with your current systems?
3. Then, check out reviews from other sales teams who’ve already tried these tools—it’s always good to hear firsthand experiences.
4. Finally, make sure the tool you pick can grow with your business and is customizable enough to fit your team’s specific needs. Scalability and customization should be built-in these tools to ensure that they can grow with your team.

Implementing Route Planning Software

Successfully rolling out route planning software for your business takes a bit of planning itself. The reason for this is people don’t like change.

If you’re currently using a route planning process and identify why it’s time for a change. Usually this begins with a pro/con list of areas where things could improve.

Presenting the new route planning software implementation as a vacation from the long hours behind the “wind-screen” and the frustration of doubling-back, driving miles that’ve already been covered, you’ll be able to get your team on board a whole lot quicker.

Start by explaining the benefits of using a sales route planner and how it will make their jobs easier and more productive. Demonstrate the software’s features and let them see how it can streamline their daily tasks. Then, set aside time for training and ensure that everyone is comfortable using the tool before fully transitioning to it.

Lastly, keep an eye on how the tool impacts your sales revenue and overall performance. Regular monitoring will help you make the necessary tweaks to get the best results.

Overcoming Common Challenges

Bringing new software into the mix isn’t always a smooth ride. One common hurdle is getting your sales reps on board with the change. Resistance to change is normal as change often brings frustration, confusion, and new challenges that reps would rather not face.

Going back to our last point, combatting this requires sales managers to make sure that they receive proper training and understand the long-term benefits of using the tool.

Another challenge is integration—make sure the route planning software you choose works seamlessly with your existing CRM. Finally, if you’re worried about visibility, the right software should offer reporting features that give you a clear view of what your sales teams are up to in real-time.

Conclusion

Investing in sales route planning software can really boost your team’s efficiency and productivity! Whether you go with Convex, Salesforce, Badger Maps, Veloxy, or another option, the right tool will help your reps spend less time on the road and more time sealing the deal.

Ready to start optimizing your routes?

Schedule a demo of Convex today! You’ll be amazed at the difference it can make for your business!