How Sales Territory Optimization Can Benefit a Business

For a rapidly growing business, sales territories outgrow boundaries all the time. If your current boundaries are not growing, it is time to re-evaluate the whole structure and improve strategies to serve your customers best. 

That is when the Dynamics 365 map plugins step in. This tool helps you visualize the CRM data on a map and analyze it wisely. You will have insights into maximizing your efforts by making subtle changes in the territory structure.

You might find it intimidating where to start. But we have got you all covered. We will share all the information that you will need to optimize the territories, why you need to do it, and what benefits you will have after optimizing it.

What is Territory Optimization & Why do Businesses Need it?

Businesses optimize territories to align the workload and the resources (sales team) to obtain the best possible outcome.

Usually, territory optimization is conducted at regular intervals to maintain the desired output. Some of the reasons why companies undertake territory optimization:

• Changes in marketing strategy
• Addition of a new product
• Poor coverage of territories
• Increased cost due to inefficient routes
• Duplication of efforts in the sales team
• High resource turnover due to unequal distribution of territories 

All these reasons directly or indirectly affect sales revenue, customer service, and employee work satisfaction.

If you don’t want to fall into this trap, it is advisable to optimize territories regularly. To do so, you can do it manually or with the help of a tool.

Optimizing territories manually is time-consuming, and you might end up not optimizing it entirely. But if you use a tool, you can optimize them smartly. 

The tools display all the Dynamics 365 CRM data on a map. You can make a freehand drawing to make a custom territory, use geometrical shapes, or divide it based on regions (city/state).

With such mapping tools, you have more control over the whole process, and the territories created would be even. Even client distribution in territories will make it easier for you to distribute work to the sales team.

Benefits of Territory Optimization

Let’s have a look at the benefits of optimizing a  territory. Once you learn about them, you will clearly see how easy it is to optimize a territory using a mapping tool. It will also help you discover how to improve your sales team’s performance and increase revenue.

• Increase in Revenue

By just making changes in territories, you can increase sales revenue by upto 7%. But what are the reasons that lead to growth in the sales number?

To start with, territories created with the mapping tools distribute clients evenly. It eliminates coverage gaps. Thus, work will be distributed equally when you assign territories to the sales team. Sales reps have enough time to research and know about the prospects. 

When sales reps spend enough time with the prospects, they feel valued and cared for. This will help your organization close more deals, receive good reviews, a surge in referrals, more upsells, and more to boost revenue.

There are other benefits that your leverage after optimizing territories. However, increasing revenue is more than enough to convince organizations to regularly and smartly create territories and find good tools to help them achieve these.

• Reduction in Cost

Now that you know how to increase the revenue, one more thing you can do to increase it more is by reducing costs. Resources are assets for a company. It is in your hand how you want to make the best use of their ability. Territory management or optimization is one way.

The market is changing every day. You can have a competitor the next day. All this means you must keep updating your strategies because there is no definite way that you can follow them for a long time.

For instance, you have a new competitor in town. You would see a change in customer demand, your customers might prefer them over your products. 

All this means the number of customers you have will constantly change. You can’t have a fixed number of sales reps assigned to one territory for long. You have to make changes in the number of resources you assign to a territory.

With a mapping tool, you can constantly tweak the territories so that sales reps don’t have to overwork or lack to reach the monthly target because of less number of clients to approach. 

Apart from territory management, mapping tools help sales reps with optimized routes to reduce the number of miles. Reduction in the number of miles means lesser fuel consumption, hence less cost. Hence, the cost will reduce sharply when you have the right amount of resources distributed across the territories. 

• Save Time

Sales teams find territory management difficult as it is a long process to divide the geographical areas and create territories. If the territories are huge, sales reps will have to spend more time covering clients and have to travel more. 

Alternately, if the territories are small, sales reps won’t have enough customers to justify their time and the expenses of traveling. Hence, the key is to find the right combination between time and expense.

This is when a mapping tool can help you create territories while keeping in mind the travel time and how you can reduce it. It is a boon for your sales team and, of course, your company.

• Improve Sales Reps Productivity

The job of the sales rep is draining. They spend long hours driving from client to client. The overall experience can be exhausting. Due to this reason, if employees start leaving, it will be challenging for an organization to find new ones and maintain the workflow without any breaks. 

However, territory optimization can reduce burnout rates. Optimized territories help you divide the equal amount of work between sales reps. Thus, everyone will have equal opportunity. No sales reps have to overwork just to keep up with the work given. This helps them give proper attention to all the clients or prospects to make the most sales out of the assigned territory.

When you don’t distribute territories equally within the sales team, it directly impacts their performance. Their sales number can reduce by 14%. Hence, optimized territories help balance the sales reps’ workload and give them equal opportunities to excel in work.

• Improve Customer Experience

Organizations want their customers to stick with them for years. When you (the organization or your sales team) have a good relationship with the customers, customers feel comfortable purchasing from you. These relationships get strangers, which helps in converting customers into loyal customers.

When sales reps have a lot on their plate, they are not able to put that extra effort into building relationships. Customer satisfaction level might drop down. But if you merge your territory planning with the customer service goal, it will become easier for sales reps to provide high customer satisfaction.

How to Find the Right Tool for Your Business

There are a lot of tools available in the market, but not all tools work for all businesses. Firstly, you need to decide whether you want a separate tool or a plugin that seamlessly integrates with your Dynamics 365.

Adding one more tool for your employees can impact their efficiency as they already use multiple tools on a daily basis. But if you invest in the plugin, it will integrate with your CRM and ease a lot of your work, plus you won’t have to manage one more tool.

These plugins have all the features that a sales team would need, like territory management, route optimization, resource management features, appointment tracking, and whatnot. It is a complete package that reduces repetitive tasks, improves productivity, helps improve sales, and reduces costs to an organization.

Try the free trial versions of these plugins. Check whether it fulfills your business requirements. Ask the development company whether they make custom changes at your request (if you need changes in the plugin). If you feel convinced after all these, enroll in their subscription plan. Dynamics 365 users just need to search Dynamics 365 map plugin, and you will have a list of providers.

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