9 Reasons for Businesses to Have a Mapping Tool

Handling an on-field sales team is a struggle because it is hard to maintain communication with a team not under the same roof. It lacks clarity on their work and performance.

Managers have to call them to give or take minor updates. It becomes frustrating for sales reps and managers. But technology can help us bridge this gap.

Using one more tool to bridge this gap is not a solution. Too many tools complicate the work process. But if you want to bridge team gaps and improve performance, you must use one.

The best way to do this is to use a plugin. Dynamics 365 users can easily find Dynamics 365 map plugin. This plugin integrates with the CRM, so you don’t have a manage one more tool.

You will be able to access advanced features like data visualization on maps, live tracking, shortened routes, and many more.

Let us discuss more details about why your business needs a mapping tool.

What is Dynamics 365 Mapping Plugin?

These plugins integrate with the Dynamics 365 CRM so that you can view all the CRM data on a map and unlock other advanced features as well. These features will smoothen your workflow and bring in the missing clarity.

A lot of teams in your organization can use it. For example, the Sales Team, Marketing Team, OPs Team, On-field Team, Support Team, Production Team, HR Team, and others. It will help them coordinate internally and with customers.

Keep reading if you still have reservations about how these teams can use a mapping plugin.

• Improves Data Visualization of CRM Data

Sales and Marketing team targets regions based on the number of sales that particular region brings in. If some region has more clients, it will probably bring in more sales.

This data helps them plan their next strategy. However, having data in lists is hard to visualize. They have assumed lat-long from the long lists and try to target the audience.

Targeting locations and visualizing the data on a map helps them have a realistic view. A lot of the time, the calculation goes wrong, and they don’t receive desired results. Your teams can take better decisions as their visualization power increases and deliver expected results.

• Map View of all the Records

It is obvious that viewing records on a map is way better than viewing records on CRM.

You can also filter the records and view the data that you want to see, not everything else. Additionally, you can filter regions, territories, or any specific location to view custom results.

Thus, you have full control over how much you want on the map. Moreover, you can draw shapes or select the regions you want to target. So if you select one region, it will show all the client’s locations in the form of geotagging pins.

These geotag pins carry a lot of other information about clients, like their name, designation, address, contact info, etc. You can customize the information you want to see when you hover over the pins. 

• View Nearby Customers

Sales and marketing teams always look for banquets to organize demos or quickly catch up with clients. They need to find a location that is nearby their client’s location, or there are high chances they might not join.

But it is not practically possible to find a location that will be near all the invitees.  But if you have a mapping plugin, you can view the nearby clients with a proximity search feature.

This feature allows you to find the clients keeping any location you want as a center. It shows 2 to 3 concentric circles of different radii. So, you can target customers under 5 miles or 10 miles or whatever your target is.

The other advantage of this feature is finding clients whenever you have some free time. Meetings get canceled often, but you can use this time to meet other clients. The search results will show clients near you. You can use your time to meet them and make more connections. 

• Shows Shortest Routes

Sales reps have traveled the whole day to meet clients. Sometimes, they get stuck in traffic or find it difficult to find the exact locations. Sometimes, there are road closures, or they accidentally choose roads with a toll tax.

As fuel prices are continuously increasing, it must reduce the traveling miles. Companies want their employees to reduce travel time so fuel consumption decreases. If that decreases, the cost will also decrease.

Without any designed routes, sales reps use maps to find the client’s location. They have to add details every time they visit a new client manually. Also, these apps don’t show a route that will cover all the locations.

But with the mapping tool, the manager doesn’t have to add any details manually. The tool will make a route containing all the client destinations. The route designed will be the shortest and show the sales reps estimated reaching time. Thus, they won’t miss any meetings or reach late.

• Live Tracking

When you don’t know the live location of your sales reps, how will you share important information with them? Managers might want to share new leads or details that would help them convince the client.

Sales reps usually add the details like meeting times and the clients they visit in a day. Sometimes, they enter the details because they have to fill out the sheets. They don’t meet the clients and enter fake entries to show they have.

But if you have correct digitized data, it can make a huge difference while assigning the work to sales reps and ensuring they are productive.

Once you have a mapping tool, it helps you track sales reps. You can see their live location when they check in and check out from the meeting. You will have access to genuine records, which will help you understand how much time they spend behind meetings and other activities like traveling and breaks.

So, you can assign them a realistic list of clients. No employees of yours have to overwork, or no one will underperform. There is one more advanced feature to support this feature even more. It is called geofencing. This feature ensures that the sales reps only check in when they reach the client location.

Sales reps won’t be able to check in for the meeting unless they reach the client’s location. Thus, this means no false data entries. All the data that you have is genuine.

• Multi-language Support

One of the biggest barriers while having a team overseas is language. If employees don’t understand the language of the tool, it becomes difficult for them to use it. It will create more confusion than helping the sales reps.

Language should not be the reason that hampers employee productivity. They won’t be able to finish their daily tasks if they can’t use the product well. Thus, the mapping tool supports multiple languages. There is no restriction to language. Users can choose the language of their choice.

• Data Security

It is the organization’s responsibility to secure the data. It is not a good idea to distribute all the information to all the company’s employees. That is why mapping tools have features like security templates.

Based on the employee’s job profiles, you can develop a variety of security templates. The only information to which the employees would have access is that which was relevant to their roles. Hence, you may keep data accessible and secure in this way.

• Data Analysis

Analyzing data is challenging, especially when information is complex and continuously changing. However, this problem can be fixed with the map plugin.

To plan your weekly and monthly activities, you can review the sales activity, consult follow-up data, monitor leads and results, among other things. For a better understanding of sales, you also use heat maps.

• Work Distribution

Initially, planning the schedule of the team took hours. These tasks required managers to spend a lot of their time. But with the map plugin, all your CRM information is displayed on the map itself.

You can choose clients or regions and assign them to sales reps. You can also pre-plan the schedule and assign weekly and monthly tasks to them.

Conclusion

Many firms run on the backs of sales representatives. If you or your team are having trouble reaching your objectives, this issue must be addressed immediately. It is impossible to resolve all the challenges with just one tool. However, everyone wins if you can get something that works with your current system. CRM Mapping tool is one such solution. Integrating a mapping plugin with CRM will help you resolve a lot of challenges.

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