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( votes)Businesses with on-field sales teams use a mapping tool that helps them visualize their clients on maps. Mapping tools allow you to make territories based on your strategies.
Territory management becomes much easier with a mapping tool. But Dynamics 365 users should avoid using standalone apps. Because, in the end, they have to integrate their Dynamics CRM with the mapping tool.
To shorten this process of receiving data from CRM to the mapping tool, you can have a map plugin that directly integrates with the CRM. Thus, you will not need any third-party extensions for integrating CRM.
Rather than using a mapping tool as a different tool, you can use all its features within the CRM. The map plugin has a lot of helpful features, let’s learn about them.
Geocoding of CRM data
Making a list of clients from CRM while making strategies or planning a future move won’t give you clarity. Strategizing with a lack of visualization of data would probably not give you desired results.
The list might not give you an exact idea of the low or high-performing territories. So, if you have a plan that would work best for a high-performing territory and you end up executing in a territory with fewer clients, you will definitely not get the results you were looking for.
This shows that visualization of data is extremely important. That is why we take help from technology. The Dynamics 365 map plugin allows you to plot all your CRM records on a map.
So you will see all the records plotted on the map rather than in list form. It improves visualization and helps managers in making informed decisions.
You can easily figure out regions with low or high sales. There is also an option to view records on the heat map. The map will show different colors for different density levels.
Proximity Search to Find Nearby Clients
This feature is the best to guide on-field sales reps about any new opportunity near them. The proximity search shows sales reps and nearby customers, so they can meet the customers close to them and cut off the traveling time.
They can search the clients in three ways:
- Distance
You can enter the number of miles, and the Dynamics 365 map plugin will show you all the clients that are within that many miles. This will save sales reps from traveling far and reduce their traveling time.
- Time
The other way of filtering the clients around you is by time. For example, if you finish off a meeting an hour earlier than you thought and you want to utilize that time to meet other clients, you can search nearby clients whom you can reach within the given time. You can say 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or so and it will show you all the clients you can meet in that time frame.
- Location
You can enter a location and see how many clients you have around that location.
Thus, proximity search will help your on-field team in making the best use of their time. It will help reduce traveling time and fuel consumption.
Route Optimization
Reaching late to a meeting creates a negative impression to the client, especially if it’s your first meeting with them. You don’t want to make them feel that you don’t care for them. Giving reasons like you were stuck in the traffic won’t do any damage control that you did by reaching late. The ship has already sailed.
This shows you need to take time management seriously. The routes you choose must help you reach your destination on time. To do all these, the map plugin is the perfect solution.
Sales reps need a map to guide them. They won’t know all the routes in town, and there might be traffic jams on their way. Map plugin, with the help of Google Maps and Bing Maps, shows optimized routes.
The routes will be formed using the Shortest Path First algorithm. It will also show you how long it will take to reach the destination. Moreover, the route will also avoid paths with traffic jams and road closures and suggest paths without tolls as well.
There are various benefits of this feature:
- Reduces the total number of miles
- Reduce fuel consumption
- Wiser use of time
- Increase sales
- Improve on-field team productivity
Live Tracking
Knowing the current location of sales reps can help managers give important tips and guide them about the new opportunity around them. But it is not feasible to call the on-field team to know their current location.
On the other hand, managers have no idea what their on-field teams do the whole day. At the end of the day, they get to see the reports. There are a lot of misses in a day that could have been avoided if the managers knew what was going on. The sales reps might enter false information, and managers would never know.
Live tracking of the on-field sales team is the solution. You could see the current location of all the on-field sales teams. Moreover, there is an auto check-in/check-out feature to keep track of all the meetings.
Whenever the sales reps reach near the client’s location on or before the meeting time, the app will auto check-in. In case they reach late, they have to enter the reason for being late, and that goes for the manager’s approval.
Once they leave, the app will auto check out and ask the sales reps to add the meeting notes. Once they add it, the managers can see what happened in the meeting and give guidance to prepare them for the next meeting.
Thus, managers can see the time that sales reps utilize in meetings, how many clients they have already met, what was the outcome of that meeting, which path the sales reps are following, and more.
Custom Configurations
The app is fully configurable. You have total control over what you want on your dashboard, what your resources can see, and what features you want to use in the map plugin. There are three main things to configure as per your business requirements.
- Security Templates
It is not necessary to give all the editing or viewing rights to all your employees. There might be a risk of alteration of data. Moreover, it is not advisable to show all the data you have to all your resources.
Map plugins have security template features using which you can create different types of templates. For instance, you can create templates according to designations. Managers can see and filter data, on-field sales reps can only view assigned territories, etc.
You can enable or disable all the filters and functions the map has and create multiple templates.
- Multiple Languages
Language should never be the barrier between technology and the user. Keeping that in mind, the map plugin supports multiple languages. You can select your preferred language and make the best use of all the functionalities of the map plugin.
- Global and User-level Configurations
You have full rights to set the global-level configuration. That is how all the users will see the map plugin. But you can also give customization rights to your resources. You have to select how much customization you want them to do, and those things will be customizable for resources.
Such customization gives a sense of personalization to users. They can use filters and colors that work best for them in terms of productivity.
Thus, the map plugin is dynamic in all terms. Users have full rights to customize its fields and make it appropriate to their demands.
Conclusion
There are a lot of mapping tools in the market. But rather than choosing a standalone app, Dynamics 365 users can invest in a map plugin. This plugin will integrate with their Dynamics CRM avoiding the need to use a mapping tool as an additional tool. The plugin integrates well with CRM and shows all the data on a map. This is the most cost-effective way of using a mapping tool for Dynamics 365 users. Before subscribing to any plugin you must have a demo of the plugin and also try its free trial version. That will give you more hands-on experience. Once you feel everything is satisfactory, then subscribe to their yearly plans.
The post How Map Plugin is Beneficial to Dynamics 365 Users appeared first on CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365.
