Use case: Optimize your daily route and planning with Cegeka Field Sales App

Sales representatives spend a significant amount of time on the road. By taking the shortest route, they can make more qualitative visits, visit more customers in the same amount of time, and close more deals. Cegeka Field Sales App automatically calculates the optimal route to customers and prospects, while also taking into account other variables, such as private appointments, store opening hours, and availability of store representatives.

The challenge 

Sales reps generally know the shortest route to visit their regular customers. Yet efficient scheduling will always remain a major challenge, plus it’s paramount to make as many visits and close as many deals as possible. So, what exactly is so challenging about planning?

• Sales representatives often visit prospects that are not yet part of their standard route.
• In addition to store visits, they have to fit internal meetings, private appointments, lunch breaks, into their tight schedules.
• When going to a location, sales reps must make sure the store is open and the store representative is available, in order to guarantee a successful visit and close a deal.
  
  

The approach 

Cegeka Field Sales App revolutionizes the way sales reps plan their visits by automating and optimizing the entire process. Suppose you want to visit 10 prospects in a new region tomorrow. 

• Instead of having to manually create an appointment in Outlook for each visit, Cegeka Field Sales App automatically schedules all of the visits in your online calendar.
• The Optimize algorithm then collects the exact coordinates of all visits and sends them to the Microsoft servers, which will calculate the optimal route to do all the visits.
• Based on this route, Cegeka Field Sales App efficiently reorganizes all previously scheduled appointments in your Outlook calendar.
• From there, just open your first appointment, forward the coordinates to the navigation app on your phone and you’re good to go!

And what if you want to plan your whole week right away? Sure thing:

• Cegeka Field Sales App will plan as many visits according to the above described process.
• If the first day reaches maximum capacity, the remaining appointments are sent back to the Microsoft servers to recalculate the optimal route for the next day, and the next, and so on. In other words: Cegeka Field Sales App will optimize your planning day by day.

In addition to finding the shortest route, Cegeka Field Sales App considers several other variables:

• Cegeka Field Sales App schedules appointments based on your availability, aligning with your work hours (e.g. part-time employees) and taking into account internal meetings, private appointments, and even lunch breaks.
• For every location, you can provide Cegeka Field Sales App with additional information, such as store opening hours and store representative availability. This way, the system won’t schedule visits if the customer isn’t available.
• Appointments in Cegeka Field Sales App are usually set for half an hour, but you can easily adjust the default duration based on specific visit requirements.

The results 

Thanks to Cegeka Field Sales App, sales reps can plan more efficiently, make more visits in the same amount of time and close more deals. The app:

• Calculates the shortest route to customers and prospects.
• Automatically schedules all visits in your Outlook calendar.
• Takes into account other variables, such as your own availability, specific store opening hours, and availability of store representatives.

Want to see more ways Cegeka Field Sales App can streamline your sales processes? Explore our other use cases:

 How to automate order processing
 Tracking product sales pipelines in bars and restaurants
 Making the most out of store checks
 How to manage sales promotions and other actions centrally
 Running on-site store checks offline on any device