3 Limitations of Sales Territory Mapping Without a Mapping Tool

How does your sales team map territories?

Most of the organizations don’t have a proper tool to visualize the CRM data on maps. They either filter the CRM results based on location or use Google Maps, Bing Maps, or Apple Maps to see the exact location. 

However, the truth is that these processes can be quite lengthy to be sufficient for data visualization. It leaves room for errors and mistakes like missing out on data, entering wrong data, etc. You might be missing some good opportunities, which might be ultimately a loss of revenue for your business.

To define territories and assign them to sale steps without mixing them up, you need more details. Details like your customer’s demographics, purchase details, current location, etc. If you don’t have this sorted, your sales reps might be knocking on the same door. 

Let’s discuss further on how these problems impact your business and what you can do about them. 

Problem 1: No Digital Data on Number of Clients Assigned to Sales Reps

A lot of managers assign regions to sales reps and not prospects. They have to meet all the prospects that fall under that region. Now, if you divide a city into 10 different portions, it will not have boundaries. There is a high chance your sales reps might be visiting each other’s areas. 

Without any proper tools, they would not know how to track the progress on any accounts.   All the sales reps would add the client to their list. At the end of the day, they will have a list of the clients visited. But what they would not know is that the data of the prospects might not be accurate.

Distributing areas might not be a fair way to assign work to sales reps because it is not necessary that all territories will have an equal number of clients. Some reps might have 50 houses, while others would have 150. 

Due to this, some might have to overwork, and some would not have enough prospects to bring in a good sales number. And if you use commission-based incentives, sales reps with lesser clients won’t be happy.

Problem 2: Lack of Demographic Information

If you want more sales from territories, you should have demographic information about those territories. You can only estimate numbers when you have a basic understanding of the people leaving there.

Knowing clients’ needs increases the chances of closing more deals. You should also have enough information about climatic conditions. These will help you sell the products accordingly because winter jackets will share more in colder places. So it is important to have accurate data about the target audience and the weather conditions before approaching them.

Problem 3: Manually Adding Addresses of All the Prospects to See Routes 

We have tools like Google Maps and Apple Maps to show us routes to the desired destinations. But for sales reps who have multiple locations to visit in a day, it can be a time-consuming task to copy the address of the CRM and find it on the map.

They have to do it for all the locations they visit. There is a high risk of missing out on some parts of the address and reaching somewhere else. A lot of sales reps’ time goes into fixing things rather than having meaningful conversations with clients. There is a study that shows 64% of sales reps go behind performing such other tasks.

On the other hand, when sales reps spend more time traveling, it might increase fuel costs. So, organizations have to find a way that helps them reduce this cost.

A Mapping Tool to Overcome All These Limitations

We have listed solutions that a Dynamics 365 map can provide to Dynamics 365 users:

• Territory Mapping With Demographic Data

If you want more output with fewer efforts, you need to act smart. And for that, you will need data. Data about the population of the territories. Your sales reps can make better decisions when they know who they are approaching. 

They can filter the leads and products they should approach. It will save their time approaching people who would not buy the product because it is no help to them. The map plugin helps them find the nearby location so they can make run-time changes in their schedule if there’s a new lead near their current location.

• Easy Referrals 

Customers tend to believe things when someone they know uses the same product. If the sales reps have data of all the customers around them, they can use those while they pitch their products. Sales reps can give examples of how and why they started using the product.

There is a huge difference when a customer approaches the customer with and without any referrals. Hence, the chances of closing customers increases. Your sales reps would be able to bring in more sales.

You can also offer discounts to customers if their referrals buy the product from your sale steps. This will build connections and increase sales.

• Assign Equal Clients to All Sales Reps

When you assign a big piece of land directly to sales reps, it gets unfair in many ways. Some will have a lot of customers to approach, and some won’t have enough to meet their daily targets. As an organization you  need to maintain the balance between distributing sales reps’ workload. 

You can easily resolve this issue with the sales territory mapping plugin. Using this app, managers can assign an equal number of clients to all sales reps. Thus, it gets easy to draw or make boundaries on a map and distribute clients to definer regions with a mapping tool.

• No Overlapping of Regions

With the clear distribution of areas with the help of zip codes, the chances of your sales reps crossing each other’s territories decreases. However, dividing territories based on zip codes can create an imbalance in the work sales reps are assigned. 

But with the help of a mapping tool, you will have a total number of clients in the given zip code. So, you can decide the number of sales reps required. If some regions have more clients, you can assign more sales reps.

You will have clear data in hand, so no need to do any guesswork. The mapping tool will help you divide the work evenly between sales reps.

• Find POI’s Easily

Some meetings are arranged in cafes, restaurants, banquets, etc. Sales reps are always in a search to find good places. Mostly, these tools have integration with Google Places. It becomes easier for sales reps to find good places nearby. 

They can plan their day beforehand and make the required bookings. This will save their time in finding a cafe in a new area. The sales reps save their time as they reach the right address on the first go.

• Geofencing for Actual Data

Google Maps can take you to the desired location, but you cannot track all your team members. But a mapping tool can help you track all your employees. If you have a huge sales team, you can see their live locations on map. 

If you have a new lead, you can directly contact the sales rep that is nearby. Some mapping tools have an advanced feature called geofencing, using which you can have genuine data of all the meetings.

This feature asks sales reps to check in when they reach the client location. But the geofencing feature demands them to be on the exact location to check in or else it won’t allow. So, sales reps cannot enter any fake entries. All the data you will have at the end of the meeting about the timings will be 100% genuine. 

Conclusion

If you want to grow your business, you have to find ways to overcome these limitations. It won’t be a smart decision if you don’t take any action even after knowing what factors are hampering your business’s growth. 

From a business point of view, your ideal goal should be to provide the best customer experience to your employees and, at the same time, ensure no factors are hampering your sales rep’s productivity. 

A mapping tool will help you achieve both of these goals. It will smoothen all your work processes and improve results.

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