How to effectively plan and optimize a sales route

For field professionals, the sales route structures the entirety of daily activity. Every trip, every appointment, and every mile traveled has a direct impact on available time, incurred costs, and sales performance.

That is why the design and optimization of a sales route plan are not a matter of comfort, but a strategic choice for any field activity.

In this article, we dive deep into the art of sales route plan optimization, in order to give you all the keys to maximize your efficiency and successfully achieve your goals.

Sales route: definition and conceptual framework

What is a sales route plan?

A sales route plan is a roadmap (or a tool) that organizes, over a given period (day, week, month), your schedule and all of your field visits, in order to maximize the number of appointments while streamlining associated expenses and travel time. Concretely, a good sales route plan tells you whom to visit, when to visit them, and in what order (geographical logic and human constraints).

A sales route plan helps structure activity coherently, prioritize high-stakes visits (potential, emergencies, sales objectives, etc.), while optimizing travel and field coverage.

The route plan is the result. It is the "final" document that will accompany professionals on their trips. When we want to talk about the process used to build, improve, and adjust this plan, we refer to sales route optimization.

Objectives of a sales route plan

An optimized sales route plan can offer many advantages to your company and sales team. Here are some of the most important benefits:

• Maximization of productivity: An optimized route plan allows your sales representatives to visit more clients or prospects in a minimum amount of time.

• Cost reduction: the cost of a sales representative to the company is far from limited to compensation. Restaurants, hotels, fuel costs... All expenses can be streamlined with an optimized route.

• Increase in sales: it allows your sales reps to dedicate more time to selling and managing client relationships rather than planning and traveling.

• Improved client satisfaction: with more regular and predictable visits, an optimized route plan improves client satisfaction by responding to their needs more quickly.

• Reduction of stress and fatigue: a well-organized route plan optimizes travel times and minimizes unforeseen events, reducing stress and fatigue for your traveling sales reps.

• More efficient time management: less time spent on the road means more time spent selling.

• Adaptability: a good route plan can be adjusted according to strategic changes in the company, clients, and market.

What is an optimized sales route?

An optimized sales route is a field route designed to maximize sales performance, taking into account both economic and sales challenges, as well as operational constraints, and not just distance or travel time. It aims to visit the right clients, at the right time, in the right order.

A sales route becomes optimized when it no longer relies solely on habits, geographical proximity, or a simple sequence of appointments. We speak of sales route optimization once these routes follow a prioritization logic (sales potential, adapted visit frequency, current objectives, field constraints, etc.).

What are the main types of sales routes?

To cover your territory, you have several methods to structure your route plan.

The daisy route

The sales sector is divided into distinct zones, each approached like a "petal". Each zone is covered in a loop, allowing a sequence of appointments until returning to the starting point, i.e., the company or the sales representative's home.

It is best suited for limited sectoring and lends itself well to monthly planning, as it allows "completing" one petal per day.

The cloverleaf route

The cloverleaf route follows the same reasoning as the daisy route but limits the number of zones to 4.

This model is particularly suitable for weekly organization, where four days are dedicated to field visits and one day to the office for administrative, prospecting, and organizational tasks.

The zigzag route

The zigzag route is generally used for routes over an extended area but crossed by a central road, for example, when a large number of clients are located on either side of a highway.

The traveling sales rep then starts with the appointment furthest from their prospecting base to complete all other visits in the direction of their starting point.

The spiral or snail route

Also designed to cover vast territories, the snail route describes a spiral visit plan starting from the point of departure, which ends with the furthest appointment, just like a snail.

Now that you know the different types of routes, let's look at the criteria for choosing the one most suited to your needs.

Route organization, planning, and optimization: what are the differences?

Before diving into the heart of the matter, I would like to distinguish between the terms organization, planning, and sales route optimization. They are often used as synonyms. However, they correspond to three distinct and complementary levels of structuring field activity. Understanding these differences is essential, particularly when choosing the tools you provide for your employees.

Organization of a sales route

The organization of routes corresponds to the upstream structuring work. It consists of setting the general framework for field activity, such as:

• the definition of territories or sectors,

• the segmentation of clients and prospects,

• the distribution of visit points among sales reps,

• the definition of visit frequency rules.

The logic here is long-term.

Planning a sales route

The planning of routes takes place once the organization is defined. It consists of concretely building the route plan, meaning deciding which clients to visit, when to visit them, in what order, and over what period (day, week, month).

Planning transforms the organization (which is theoretical) into a schedule (which is operational).

Optimization of a sales route

The optimization of routes is a short-term logic since it consists of continuously improving organization and planning. Optimization relies on prioritizing visits, analyzing field results, adjusting routes and frequencies, as well as taking unforeseen events into account.

• adjustments

• continuous improvement

Why route optimization is a key issue for field professionals

For field professionals (sales reps, sector managers, technicians, team managers), the route conditions productivity, the quality of the work carried out, and therefore their performance. It is not only an operational lever, it is also a strategic lever that directly impacts potential revenue.

• Better management of productivity and associated costs;

• Better control of field constraints;

• Key factor in the well-being of field teams.

Step 3: prioritizing visits

Prioritization is a key step in optimizing sales routes. It consists of deciding between different visit points based on a simple scoring system, based on objective criteria.

The scoring can take several criteria into account:

• The typology of your visit: setup / Quality control / With appointment / Or prospecting call;

• The typology of your client: suspects / Prospects / Active clients / Inactive clients;

• The location of the store;

• Sales data from recent visits: Numeric distribution / Weighted distribution / Evolution of revenue / Evolution of sell-out / Presence of POS displays / Etc.;

• Order frequency;

• Visit frequency.

For example:

• If you are conducting a promotion setup visit, you will visit active clients with significant numeric and weighted distribution.

• If you are conducting a quality control visit, you will visit active clients with a low visit frequency.

• If you are conducting a prospecting visit, you will visit prospects.

This prioritization makes it possible to focus efforts where the impact is strongest.

Step 4: building the itinerary and route plan

Once the visits are defined and prioritized, you must concretely build the route plan, i.e., organize the sequence of appointments to spend more time in meetings than in transit.

At this stage, a map visualization of the visit points becomes a real asset. It allows you to visualize the zones to cover, intelligently group visits, and adjust the order of stops. Tools specialized in route optimization are particularly useful at this step, because they go beyond simple mapping applications, which are often limited to navigation.

We advise you to use a software solution designed around route optimization, rather than one adapted or cobbled together to work with third-party mapping applications. Indeed, solutions like Google Maps or Excel are not designed to achieve this level of performance and optimization, and will not be able to help you maximize your itineraries.

Having a map visualization is even more of an advantage if it is accompanied by intuitive tools, like the lasso tool that allows you to easily select your stores or visit locations.

What tools should you use to organize and optimize your sales routes?

To effectively organize, plan, and optimize sales routes, the choice of tools plays an important role. They do not all meet the same needs or the same level of maturity.

Mapping and navigation tools

Mapping applications (GPS, routes) are useful for getting from point A to point B.

What they bring:

• route calculation,

• travel time estimation,

• real-time navigation assistance.

Their limitations:

• they do not take sales targets into account,

• they do not integrate the concept of prioritization,

• they do not build a route plan based on business criteria.

They are useful during the route, but insufficient for organizing and optimizing it beforehand.

Specialized sales route management tools

Solutions dedicated to sales route management go further. They allow for a more coherent structuring of field activity.

They generally offer:

• a map visualization of visit points,

• the creation of route plans,

• itinerary optimization,

• consideration of field constraints,

• better tracking of completed visits.

These tools are particularly suitable for field professionals who must manage:

• extensive areas,

• a large number of visits,

• varying frequencies of visits.

CRMs with integrated route planning

Some CRMs integrate planning and route optimization features.

Their main advantage:

• centralizing client, visit, and route data in the same place,

• avoiding duplicate data entry,

• better aligning the field with sales strategy.

They allow you to directly connect:

• sales targets,

• visit history,

• route plans.

Comparative chart of route planning tools