The Unusual Truth About Organizing Your Business Effectively (And How Route Planning Software Can Help)

“No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.” – James Cash Penney

This is very true and applies to every function of a business.

Let’s understand this with an example.

You are on the move for a client visit for a sales opportunity. Suddenly, you realize that you forgot to review the latest updates given by the client.

You call up your team at the office to locate the information and let you know immediately. Let’s assume you plan your routes with pen & paper. So, they have no way to make the search process easy.

Two hours later, they are still unable to find the required information. This is because there are plenty of details piled up and they cannot find what you need.

So, you reach the client without the latest information. This annoys the client and makes him or her think you are not a right fit. You thus lose the business and the customer’s trust.

This happens to many businesses when they do not keep their data organized. But, that’s not the only consequence.

There are more ways in which your business could suffer if you don’t store your clients’ data in once place.

Are you wondering what those are? Then read on.

Hidden Costs

You might be working hard to make more profit and your business successful. But, you always find that in some way… you’re losing money and don’t know how.

This could be due to not having your information organized.

Not knowing the real costs of managing your business… your drivers and vehicles.

Here are some statistics that prove the point:

• For lost documents, companies pay six times the value of the original document to search for it.
• Every year, around $14,000 worth of productivity is lost per worker. This is because they cannot find the information needed to do their job.
• An enterprise with 1,000 workers wastes $2.5 million annually from searching for lost data. You can calculate the cost as per your employee count with this estimate.

There are a lot of other shocking statistics on the subject. So, since you aim to make a profit, can you disregard these points?

Loss of Time

Today, professionals are overwhelmed with too much information. Everyone seems to be working harder and longer hours while getting less and less done.

People bombard them with emails, presentations, meeting details and other types of information. And, if they don’t have tools to find information, they will end up searching as though for a needle in a haystack.

Here are some statistics about how much time is wasted to find unorganized information:

• An office worker in a paper-based office loses more than six hours per week on document searches. – Software Advice Survey
• An employee spends around 1.5 hours per day to look for documents. – OrganizedWorld.com
• An executive wastes six weeks annually on average to search for documents lost in the clutter. – Wall Street Journal
• An employee spends around 25-35% of their time looking for information they need to do their jobs. – Document Magazine

But, you need not worry about this if you focus on making your information organized and accessible to those that need it.

Difficult to Penetrate New Sales Opportunities

You know where your existing clients are located. But, how do you find untapped areas?

If you plan your routes manually, there is no way you can identify potential sales locations without wasting hours looking over maps and addresses.

RELATED: Are You Still Planning Driving Routes Without Software?

You cannot see the nearby untapped area to your existing clients on an Excel sheet. This may lead to lost sales opportunities.

Also, every sales cycle comes with phases, such as leads and opportunities. But, with manual planning, it is hard to identify which leads are hot and which are cold.

Imagine how many sales opportunities you can lose in this way!

Cannot Access Information Whenever Needed

Customer disputes happen to every business. So, this will happen to your business as well. However, the success of your business lies in how well you address a customer’s dispute.

For example, if your driver turns up to a customer’s location for a delivery. And, the customer then argues about the number of deliveries that were supposed to be made.

How will your driver ensure the customer that he or she is correct?

Well… difficult to do if you don’t have the information and tools needed.

Everything is done on paper or in Excel which remains at the office. So, your driver cannot access that information at a customer’s location.

Information received too late is probably worse than having no information at all.

The Solution

Every problem has a solution and this applies to your route planning process as well.

The solution to this problem is a reliable route planner.

The software helps you see all your clients on a map. This gives you complete control over your vehicle route planning process. You can then make your route planning more efficient.

You can, for example, plan tighter meetings with clients close to each other.

Moreover, many route planners come with color-coding features. In this way, you can identify hot and cold leads from your map.

Great when you want to see how certain territories or sales teams are doing at a glance.

For example, you can highlight a potential client with a color to identify how ready they are to buy. You can thus plan a route in such a way that you can visit those clients to convince them.

Furthermore, a multi stop route planner sometimes comes with an “add note” feature. You might want to write down your thoughts before forgetting an important detail. You can thus add the specific information as a note.

All the notes are furthermore centralized to one location. You can even write and review the notes from your smartphone.

Because most leading routing programs are cloud-based, you never need to worry about finding papers.

You can access the notes from anywhere and at any time. Your notes can also automatically be “tagged” with the exact coordinates.

In this way, you would know exactly where you were when you made the note.

So, what are you waiting for? Subscribe to a route planning software to solve your vehicle route problem and the traveling salesman problem and make your business organized today!