There are two highways that cross the state of Texas.
My customer told me they wanted to change their sales territories in the system. "Everything east of this highway is territory one; everything west of the highway is territory two."
If the territories were divided by zip codes, we could buy a zipcode database and hire an intern to enter them and sort accounts by territory. But their dividing line is just a road on the map.
A Dynamics 365 CRM system can't read a map. Or can it?
I found a tool by to solve this problem for my customer. They put a map of Texas on the screen and said, "Draw a polygon around the territory." We literally followed the highway and, boom, it calculated how many records were in that map area and assigned them to a territory—ten seconds to do a job that would have taken an intern a week.
When we saw the accounts on the screen, we realized the territories were not evenly distributed, and salespeople don't like that. No problem. The Maplytics tool has a feature that will balance the number of accounts in each territory. It is all done graphically, so you can see it, move it, change it around in real-time.
I have to admit, I was astounded.
This exactly solved my customer's problem. And the monthly fee is less than a round of coffee for the team. Even better, this is just one of the many features of this tool.
The main use of this tool, which is more commonly known, is showing records as pinpoints on a map so that you can build routes.
If a salesperson is visiting a customer, they can easily see who else is in the area. Choose a radius of 5, 10, or 15 miles. Green pins are customers, yellow are prospects, red means former customers, whatever you choose. When you hover over a pin, it tells you data such as contact person, business hours, last items they purchased—anything you want to know.
When you choose a pin to visit, the system will map out a route for you and send it to the Waze app on your phone.
Or you can draw a circle on the map around the accounts you want to contact, tag them, hit a button to fire off an email that says, "Hey, I'm going to be in your city next week. Do you have time to meet?" The email is sent automatically just based on your interaction with the map.
Maplytics also works with your because CRMPlus365 is a slimmed-down, highly customizable alternative to Microsoft Dynamics 365. It is actually built on the same core Microsoft technology so you get all of the benefits at a fraction of the cost.
When my clients are looking for additional functionality for their CRM system, I always say, "If you can buy it, buy it; if you can't, we'll build it." So I am constantly on the lookout for awesome technology and nifty tools that will integrate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and CRMPlus365.
was a great find.
If you are evaluating a Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM system or are interested in finding the right tools to customize your existing system, let's start the conversation. at (833) CRM-PLUS or [email protected]
By P2 Automation,
