5 Signs It’s Time to Upgrade to Sales Route Planning Software

If your sales team is constantly on the move and meeting face-to-face with prospects, they need tools that will help them spend more time with customers and less time behind the wheel. Even if you’re already using a powerful CRM like HubSpot, it may not offer everything your field team needs to stay agile and efficient. 

That’s where route optimization software comes in. It’s designed to map out the most efficient routes for sales reps, highlight the latest customer updates, and organize key data so your reps can make the most of every mile. Read on for five signs your field sales team could benefit from route optimization. 

Too Much Time Spent Planning, Not Selling

Sales teams without access to route optimization software are forced to plan their days manually. They may pull addresses from an automated spreadsheet or CRM, but any actual planning requires time-consuming manual input that doesn’t account for traffic patterns, customer operating hours, or pipeline priorities. But with route optimization software, these manual tasks are fully automated to save time and help sales reps visit more customers in fewer miles.  

Route optimization software generates an efficient route based on a user’s desired destinations while accounting for traffic patterns, construction zones, and weather, with additional organization available to denote high- and low-priority customers. Plus, when customer schedules change and adjustments are needed on the fly, it’s easy to update the sales fleet’s maps so they spend less time at the wheel and more time talking to customers.

Your Customer Data Is Stuck in a Spreadsheet 

Even when using a contemporary CRM like HubSpot, sales teams may struggle to determine which customers to visit and when. Data about visit cadences and sales priorities may be stored in the CRM or in a spreadsheet, but if that data isn’t immediately available to sales reps, it may as well not exist.  

With route optimization software, sales teams can view every customer in each region on one interactive map that synchronizes in real-time with HubSpot. Sales team members can access customer account data directly through this map and even view or edit personal notes regarding the customer’s communication style and individual talking points. These features help route optimization software humanize the framework of numbers and data points in the connected CRM. 

Your Customer Data Is Getting Lost

There’s only one thing worse than siloed data—missing data. Sales teams that aren’t fully connected to the back office when they’re on the road risk misplaced data that can cost a customer relationship and a deal. If a sales rep notes an opportunity on a scrap of paper, who’s to say that paper makes it out of the glove compartment? 

Route optimization software ensures that every piece of customer information—from names and addresses to birthdays and hobbies to ideal products and services—is stored and accessible whenever and wherever it’s needed. This information can be viewed with the click of a button and shared between sales team members and other organizational decision-makers to ensure that deals run smoothly and efficiently through the sales pipeline. 

You Want to Find New Leads 

Route optimization software doesn’t just make sales routes more efficient—it can also help sales teams uncover new leads. Sales team members can use the software’s search function to identify prospects based on keywords, such as job titles or industries. Alternatively, the software can display nearby businesses that align with the team’s target market.  

From there, it’s a cinch to add those leads to the existing route by slotting them between geographically close meetings. And by connecting route optimization software to a CRM like HubSpot, users can synchronize data between the two systems so that every data point is captured. 

Limited Visibility into Territory Management

Without specialized software for route optimization, it’s difficult to track sales metrics within a given territory. Key metrics will vary between businesses, but most sales teams evaluate at least one of the following to track territory performance: 

• Sales volume  
• Conversion rates 
• Territory coverage 
• Activity metrics 

This data can be evaluated using spreadsheets and CRM data, but this process is time-consuming and prone to manual error.  

By synchronizing with CRM software, route optimization tools gather geographic and customer data to help sales teams evaluate performance across multiple territories. With this data, it’s easier to visualize areas that are over-worked versus areas that a sales team should prioritize. Additionally, sales managers can review individual rep performance with per-person metrics like customers visited and deals closed. 

The Best Sales Route Planning Software

If you’re already using HubSpot’s powerful CRM tools for sales, marketing, and customer service but need a route optimization tool to support your mobile sales team, we’d love to introduce you to Badger Maps. If you need both HubSpot and Badger Maps, we can help you. HubSpot integrations have saved customers up to 8 hours a week and cut drive time by 20%, granting sales reps the time they need to work more leads and convert more customers.

If you want to learn more about the Badger Maps Integration with HubSpot, check out our demo video.  

Reach out to a dedicated HubSpot partner like Cargas to learn how Badger Maps’ route optimization capabilities can help your sales team drive growth.