The Definitive Guide to Sales Route Planning

Is your field sales team dealing with inefficient routes that waste time and impact productivity?

Studies show that one in five sales reps lacks the right resources to keep their sales processes on track. This often results in poorly planned routes, leading to missed opportunities, increased stress, and wasted time.

But what if you could change that narrative?

Sales route planning offers the solution you need. It transforms your team’s operations by streamlining schedules, optimizing travel routes, and enhancing overall performance.

Keep reading to find out how effective route planning can revolutionize your operations and help your team focus on closing more deals.

What is Sales Route Planning?

Sales route planning creates optimized routes for field sales representatives to visit and connect with potential customers and existing clients efficiently. It prioritizes prospects with high sales potential or business significance by finding the best way for the sales team to travel from one customer to another.

With the help of advanced technology, sales managers can now easily design the most efficient routes, reducing travel time and distance. Field sales route planners enable managers to assess customer data, create optimal routes, and effectively schedule their teams.

Importance of Optimizing Sales Route

Optimizing your sales routes can have a huge impact on your sales success. Here’s why it’s essential:

• Reach more prospects: With smart route planning, your sales reps can visit more clients and leads daily. For example, a well-optimized route could help a rep fit in an extra stop daily, increasing the number of prospects they engage with and thus boosting your sales.

• Cost savings: Efficient route planning helps us use resources wisely by reducing unnecessary travel time and fuel expenses. This means you save money on operational costs, directly enhancing your profitability.

• Strengthen relations with customers: Timely and personalized visits, made possible by effective route planning, help build stronger client relationships. And gain client loyalty through meaningful interactions.

• Gain valuable insights: Good route planning provides valuable insights into your sales processes. It allows you to spot areas for improvement and make informed decisions, leading to better overall performance

• Quickly adapt to changes: Real-time feedback from your field reps helps you stay flexible. This lets you promptly adjust routes and strategies, ensuring your field sales team remains effective and responsive to changes.

Therefore, optimizing routes isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about increasing productivity, saving money, enhancing client satisfaction, and managing your sales team more effectively.

How to Optimize Sales Routes?

To optimize your sales routes effectively, start with technology tailored to the task. Here’s how you can maximize your route optimization:

1. Integrate sales route mapping software

Integrating sales route mapping software is a strategic move for optimizing sales routes. 

You must choose a tool that integrates with your sales data and automatically optimizes your routes. This is why you should select an optimal route planner that aligns with your priorities.

Integrating this sales route optimization software tests your strategy and commitment to improving client interactions. By automating route planning, you streamline your daily operations, enabling you to meet more clients and uncover new sales opportunities.

With Upper, you can set priorities for each stops and add time windows, ensuring you meet all your potential leads at the best possible time.

2. Map customer locations

Mapping customer locations is important for optimizing your sales routes. 

Use technology to visualize high-priority accounts and identify patterns such as customer clusters, competitor hotspots, and other relevant data. This insight lets you prioritize visits and adjust your routes for enhanced efficiency. Planning trips based on customer locations saves travel time and increases in-person meetings with important prospects.

Upper automates this process for you. Simply add all your locations, and you can see which areas to cover in a route.

PRO TIP: You can create a route with all pending locations and add it to another route. With just a click, you can enjoy endless possibilities.

3. Plan for flexibility

Incorporate flexibility in your route planning to handle schedule changes and unforeseen events.

 Intelligent routing software can adapt to last-minute changes and prioritize important customers, ensuring no missed opportunities. Planning for these dynamic changes lets you keep your schedule optimized and responsive.

Upper takes care of this for you. When plans change at the last minute, Upper’s smart routing adapts on the fly, ensuring no opportunity is missed. 
PRO TIP: Easily reschedule stops and optimize your routes in real time. With just one click, you can enjoy the perfect blend of flexibility and efficiency.

4. Consider traffic patterns and market conditions

Monitoring market trends and traffic conditions helps you adjust routes based on evolving client needs and forecasts. 

Use software tools that analyze these factors to choose the best driving routes for various scenarios, reducing delays and improving efficiency. This data-driven approach ensures you stay flexible and responsive to changes, enhancing your effectiveness.

Our advanced tools help you find the best routes, no matter the scenario. 

PRO TIP: Use Upper to adjust your routes in real-time, cutting down on delays and boosting efficiency.

5. Record notes in CRM

Maintaining accurate records is crucial for effective route planning and client management.

After each client interaction, document key details and input them into your CRM system. This practice helps you track your progress, identify areas for improvement, and facilitate smooth transitions between team members. 

Keeping thorough notes ensures you’re organized and prepared for future client meetings, enhancing efficiency and improving customer satisfaction.

Upper lets you make notes directly in the contact profile. For future visits, you can see all the notes, visit history, and more. Why juggle multiple tools when Upper does it all? 

Following these key steps and using modern technology can streamline your sales routes to boost efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction.

Top Sales Route Planners of 2024

1. Upper

Upper is the leading sales route planning and route optimization software, helping sales professionals optimize client visits, maximize productivity, and achieve their business goals more effectively.

Here’s why Upper is the top choice for sales route planning

Upper provides unlimited routes, stops, and advanced features to optimize your sales operations effectively!

And there are no limits to the route planning capabilities you can access with Upper.

What can be done with the Upper Route Planner?

• Visit more clients in less time
• Reduce travel costs and fuel consumption
• Improve customer satisfaction with on-time arrivals
• Gain real-time insights into field activities

Key features

• Advanced Route Optimization: Upper’s algorithms optimize routes considering availability, time windows, travel distances, and current traffic conditions.
• Bulk Address Import: Easily import up to 500 customer addresses at once, reducing data entry time and minimizing errors.

• Live Tracking and Route Monitoring: Real-time GPS tracking offers complete visibility into your field sales reps’ locations and movements, allowing quick route adjustments.

• Dynamic Rescheduling: Easily reschedule stops and adjust routes on the fly to handle last-minute changes and urgent meetings efficiently.
• Detailed Analytics and Reporting: Smart route analytics & reporting software offers insights into team performance by tracking key metrics like travel time and customer visits, enhancing operational efficiency.

• Comprehensive Contact Module: Maintain thorough records of client interactions, including notes and visit history, in a centralized contact profile.
• Mobile and Web App Accessibility: Upper’s mobile and web apps allow users to access and manage efficient sales routes, update statuses, and stay connected from any location.

2. RepMove

RepMove emerged from the challenges faced by its founder, Dillon Baird, as a field sales representative. Since he couldn’t find a suitable organizing tool, he created RepMove to suit his unique requirements.

RepMove is leading the way in industry innovation today, giving field sales representatives an effective tool to grow, organize, and perform well in their jobs. With its intuitive UI and customized features, RepMove is transforming the way sales-driven businesses run, enabling field sales reps to identify trends, plan driving routes, manage their processes, and succeed while on the road.

Key features

• Route Optimization: RepMove helps users create effective travel routes between client locations to save trip time and increase productivity.
• Customer Management:  To ensure individualized interactions, users may simply collect and maintain client information, such as contact data, visit history, and notes.
• Calendar Integration:  RepMove easily connects with users’ calendars, enabling them to make appointments and synchronize them with their current schedules.
• Real-time Updates: By receiving real-time alerts on traffic, route modifications, and appointment updates, users may swiftly adjust to unforeseen circumstances while driving.
• Performance Tracking: It offers analytics and reporting capabilities for monitoring sales success, including metrics like sales revenue, client visits, and sales conversions.

3. Badger Maps

Badger Maps prove to be a valuable tool for field sales teams in terms of optimizing sales routes. Reps may quickly create their areas and mark customers’ locations using the ‘Lasso’ tool, making it easy to use. Badger Maps eliminates the need for complex mapping.

Badger’s versatility across several navigation platforms is what makes it stand out. Depending on which app your team chooses, Badger interfaces easily with Waze, Google Maps, Garmin, or Magellan. Even with more than 100 client accounts loaded, the software maintains efficient and seamless routing.

Of course, no solution is perfect. Slow loading times and the inability to take notes on client updates were among the areas where our testing uncovered room for improvement. However, Badger Maps appears to be a perfect copilot for modern sales teams looking to minimize their time spent on the road.

Key features

• Targeted Focus: To maximize your deals, you may use this tool to color your points and filter your possibilities according to predefined upselling or cross-selling criteria.
• Follow-up Route Planning: This makes it possible to check in for scheduled appointments, create follow-up appointments, and plan sales routes to accommodate them on additional travel.
• Stats and Mileage Tracking: This allows you to obtain information on their routes’ distance, travel time, and total duration. This feature helps you understand the performance and overall efficiency of sales routes.
• Detailed Reports: They give you important information, such as check-in pictures, services rendered, and surveys, to help you plan your next trip more quickly.

Overall, with these route planning tools, field sales representatives can optimize their routes, streamline their workflow, and boost their sales performance.

Benefits of Sales Route Planning

Planning a route involves more than just traveling from one place to another. It’s about optimizing your sales potential with reliable routes while revolutionizing your operation and saving time and money.

1. Optimized time management: Strategic sales route planning ensures maximum client interaction, allowing you to focus on establishing connections and closing deals.
2. Increased productivity: Efficient sales routes mean more time with customers, improving relationships and sales and empowering your team to work better.
3. Cost efficiency: Using optimized routes can help you save a lot of money over time by reducing fuel use, vehicle wear and tear, and needless miles.
4. Enhanced customer satisfaction: Timely and reliable visits show your dedication to putting customers’ needs first and respecting their time, which fosters confidence and loyalty.
5. Improved sales performance: Sales route planning focuses on key areas and leads, increasing conversion rates and revenue through strategic sales territory management, resulting in tangible sales and profitability growth.

Hence, effective sales route planning is a game-changer for businesses hoping to succeed, offering advantages ranging from time and cost savings to enhanced client connections and sales success.

Boost Your Field Sales Performance with Smart Routing

Route planning is important for everyone associated with sales and marketing. When it comes to sales route planning, choosing intelligent routing software can make your life easier. The ideal sales route planning software allows field sales teams to operate efficiently. Reducing manual work also makes sales reps more productive, customers happier, and profits increase.

The next time you need an optimized route, you can switch to Upper. In addition to route planning, this software also offers route optimization, route planning, one-click dispatch, and proof of delivery. The stressful hours of route planning are also eliminated, so you can focus more on running and growing your business.