Understanding Salesforce Maps
Beyond being simply a mapping software, Salesforce Maps is a comprehensive location intelligence solution nestled within Salesforce, providing geographical mapping of Salesforce data. Its primary purpose is to aid in sales territory management by seamlessly integrating geographical data with CRM data.
Salesforce Maps offers a range of features that can benefit businesses, including:
- Capturing and visualizing stored company data
- Bolstering geographical analysis and decision-making
- Visualizing sales data
- Planning sales routes
- Optimizing sales activities
- Providing a dynamic, interactive map that revolutionizes the sales process
With these capabilities, Salesforce Maps enables businesses to implement smarter, more informed sales strategies.
Key Features of Salesforce Maps
Data Visualization
By providing visualization of sales data within a geographic context, Salesforce Maps highlights potential new sales opportunities that might have gone unnoticed in traditional CRM data sets. Users can plot accounts, opportunities, and other Salesforce objects on interactive maps, thereby gaining location-based insights into their customer data.
This enables sales representatives and sales leaders to:
- Leverage Salesforce Maps to prioritize their outreach and engagement strategies
- Provide a real-time view of the sales data, contributing to more informed decision-making and smarter sales efforts
- Use geographical segmentation and visualization of customer data to enable personalized content delivery, improving customer experience and potentially increasing revenue.
Location Intelligence
Salesforce Maps elevates location intelligence to an unprecedented level. By allowing users to:
- Visualize customer records geographically on an interactive map
- Transform data from rows and columns into a more digestible and actionable format
- Plot accounts, opportunities, and other Salesforce objects on a map to surface insights
- Highlight top-performing accounts
- Filter prospects for strategic follow-ups
Companies can build smart engagement strategies by prioritizing customer outreach through location-based filters.
Territory Planning in Salesforce Maps aids in creating balanced and equitable sales territories, ensuring an even distribution of sales opportunities and service requests among team members. By doing so, sales teams can optimize their time with customers and enhance overall productivity.
Moreover, advanced analysis and reporting enabled by Salesforce Maps integration allows the overlaying of geographic and demographic information for targeted efforts in high-potential areas.
Route Optimization
Salesforce Maps introduces route optimization, considering factors such as traffic windows, distance, appointment times, and meeting lengths to provide the most effective scheduling and routing solutions. This feature includes several routing options like:
- Standard Route Optimization for the shortest distance
- Time-Based Route and Schedule Optimization for the most optimal route considering multiple factors
- ‘Fastest Shift Completion’ to end the shift as early as possible.
Route optimization in Salesforce Maps is essentially designed to enhance field operations for sales teams and service representatives. These routing efficiencies contribute to reducing drive times, decreasing travel costs, and allowing for more customer meetings due to the consideration of real-time and historical traffic data.
Live Tracking
Salesforce Maps Live Tracking allows for monitoring the real-time location of individuals such as delivery drivers, field reps, or technicians, with updates provided every two minutes or in response to app activity. This feature enhances the monitoring of sales activities, enabling managers to track their sales teams in the field and automate alerts based on customer interactions.
In addition, within Salesforce Maps, sales teams receive:
- Actionable recommendations that align with corporate guidelines and best practices
- Checklists that streamline field engagements
- The ability to capture field notes and updates onsite, reducing redundancy in paperwork
- Enhanced CRM databases with accurate records of customer visits through geo-fencing capabilities
These features help to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the field.
Benefits of Salesforce Maps for Sales Teams
- Enhances collaboration within sales teams by enabling them to plan related territories and design territories accommodating various selling models and sales rep attributes
- Leads to more strategic and equitable territory distribution
- Enhances safety for field reps by integrating manager approval for visits and ensuring reps adhere to safety guidelines, thus maintaining compliance during customer interactions.
- Allows reps to visit the right customers at the right times
Integrating Salesforce Maps with Salesforce CRM
The seamless integration of Salesforce Maps and Salesforce CRM enables visualization of customer records and optimization of field routes directly within the CRM platform, enhancing the efficiency of sales territory management.
Salesforce Maps offers:
- Real-time insights into sales performance by combining CRM data with mapping analytics
- Enables sales teams to respond quickly to market changes
- Automated alerts within Salesforce CRM based on Salesforce Maps insights can significantly increase the responsiveness of sales teams to emerging opportunities. To access these features, a Salesforce Maps license is required.
Tips for Successful Implementation of Salesforce Maps
Despite Salesforce Maps being a powerful tool, if it’s not implemented correctly, it’s impossible to reap its complete benefits.
Identify the specific sales operations that will benefit from Salesforce Maps and outline strategic goals by considering the types of data such as accounts, leads, opportunities, and how these can be managed through Territory Planning.
Data quality is another crucial aspect of successful implementation. Utilize standard data integration rules and create automation rules for address updates to maintain accurate geocoding for all Salesforce records. Enhance geocoding precision by providing detailed, local address formats and ensuring unnecessary information is removed from address fields.
Finally, ensure Salesforce Maps is effectively implemented for users by controlling data visibility through folder structures and familiarizing with settings and options for both representatives and managers.
Addressing Common Challenges with Salesforce Maps
Like all tools, Salesforce Maps also presents its unique set of challenges. One of the most common challenges is maintaining data quality. Here are some tips to help you maintain data quality in Salesforce Maps:
- Select the correct field data types
- Avoid using free text fields
- Utilize Salesforce add-ons like Scratchpad to ensure sales and customer success teams adhere to sales processes and get all of their data into Salesforce as opposed to disconnected note-taking apps, spreadsheets, or one-off Slack conversations to parlay critical information.
By following these tips, you can ensure better data quality in Salesforce Maps and effectively analyze data.
Another significant challenge when implementing Salesforce Maps is addressing resistance from sales reps. To combat this, host sessions or workshops to help sales reps understand Salesforce Maps’ benefits and provide support and training. (This is another thing that Scratchpad can help with.) Remember, ongoing support and training are essential to ensure sales reps continue using Salesforce Maps effectively.
How to Maximize Your Salesforce Investment with Scratchpad
Navigating complex CRM systems like Salesforce can often feel like a herculean task for sales and customer success teams. Many find themselves tangled in a web of disconnected apps, spreadsheets, Slack messages, and other makeshift solutions that are easier to use, but prevent information from flowing to where it needs to go: Salesforce. When this happens Salesforce isn’t the unified source of truth which negatively impacts the customer journey and revenue generation.
Enter Scratchpad - the game-changer for sales and customer-facing teams. As a simple Google Chrome extension, Scratchpad streamlines collaboration, accelerates workflows, and enhances visibility into deal and customer information, all while ensuring Salesforce remains at the heart of your operations. It's about making Salesforce work for you, not the other way around. Say goodbye to the days of scattered information and hello to streamlined efficiency and insights. Scratchpad isn't just an extension; it's Salesforce's best companion.
Here are a few key products that Scratchpad provides:
- Automations notify leaders and sales reps whenever there are missing required fields in Salesforce for certain deals and Deal Rooms in Slack can be automatically created to ensure proactive and transparent collaboration on deals with the right members of different teams. You can even update Salesforce right from those Deal Rooms in Slack.
- AI Sales Assistant records calls and provides transcripts, AI-generated call summaries, shareable clips, and even auto-populated Salesforce fields for methodologies like MEDDIC.
- Command gives reps and managers the ability to pull up or add any data in Salesforce from anywhere on the web without even opening a new tab.
- The creation of easily accessible workflow tiles for quick reference to critical data.
This is just the tip of the iceberg with Scratchpad so try it out for free or schedule a conversation to learn more and see if it’s a good fit for your organization before setting up opportunity teams in Salesforce.
Summary
Salesforce Maps is more than just a sales mapping software; it’s a comprehensive location intelligence solution that revolutionizes the way businesses manage their sales territories. Its seamless integration with Salesforce CRM, coupled with its data visualization, location intelligence, route optimization, and live tracking features, makes Salesforce Maps an indispensable tool for businesses of all sizes.
By implementing Salesforce Maps, businesses can increase productivity, enhance collaboration, improve safety, and ultimately, drive sales. With ongoing support and training, Salesforce Maps can become an integral part of your sales process, helping your business navigate the competitive landscape of sales with ease.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Salesforce map free?
No, Salesforce Maps is not free. The pricing starts at $75 per user/month for the standard edition.
Why use Salesforce maps?
Salesforce Maps can be used for territory planning and live location tracking, as well as route optimization, making it an effective tool for businesses.
What is the function of Maps in Salesforce?
The function of Maps in Salesforce is to provide location intelligence, allowing users to embed and utilize maps within Salesforce to visualize Salesforce data geographically and optimize routes.
What are the key features of Salesforce Maps?
Salesforce Maps offers key features such as data visualization, location intelligence, route optimization, and live tracking, which enable businesses to make informed decisions and improve efficiency.
How does Salesforce Maps benefit sales teams?
Salesforce Maps benefits sales teams by increasing productivity, optimizing sales activities, reducing travel time, enhancing collaboration, and improving safety, making it a valuable tool for streamlining sales operations.
