Category: Service
RealZips Closest relates Salesforce records by distance
Automatically relate Salesforce records by distance
RealZips Version 12 is now available on the Salesforce AppExchange! The latest version of the RealZips GeoData Platform comes with a new feature named RealZips Closest. This new feature makes it possible for you to automatically relate Salesforce records by distance!
RealZips Knowledge base: How to configure RealZips Closest
What does this mean for your team?
RealZips Closest allows you to calculate distance between key locations and Salesforce records.
By adding distance data to Salesforce, it’s possible to run operations more efficiently. It’s now possible to run highly targeted marketing campaigns, laser-focused sales activities and smooth field service operations!
RealZips Closest can assign leads automatically to the closest resource such as a sales representative, store or channel partner. This article outlines how to use RealZips Closest to improve logistics and create awesome Salesforce automations.
10 min explainer
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Solve major challenges, relating Salesforce records by distance
Common challenges that RealZips Closest can fix
These challenges impact any team’s productivity on a daily basis. RealZips Closest makes possible to eliminate these problems.
1. Logistical challenges
To drive revenue growth, it’s crucial to enable your sales team to operate efficiently. It’s a matter of setting your Salesforce organization in way that helps your team get to the right customer data immediately. By using RealZips Closest for automatic distance relationships across your customer data, you’re empowering your team to make instant decisions. For example, your team will be able to pinpoint all customers within a 5 mile zone from any service location!
RealZips makes it possible to minimize your logistical challenges, as soon as records in Salesforce are automatically related to the closest locations. For example, Leads and opportunities will automatically be related to the closest sales rep, store, service center or a corporate location.
2. Lead routing
We’re sure you’ve noticed how inefficient lead management or lead routing are substantial business challenges, making it harder to sign up new customers. RealZips Closest will allow you to automate and speed up lead management for your team. Thanks to this new feature, it’s extremely easy to automatically assign leads to for example the closest store.
Most companies do not have a strategy for leads and customers located far away from their locations. Before implementing RealZips – they simply assigned customers to a field-based territory – no matter how far away a sales rep, store or service locations might have been! This approach is unfortunately very costly and inefficient. With RealZips Closest, you will be able to solve the problem by automatically assigning customer records to “Out of Market” territories, allowing these customers to be served by efficient virtual teams!
3. Account ownership automation
The next challenge is account ownership. Reliable methods for account ownership automation is absolutely crucial for your team’s success. With theRealZips Closest feature, you can immediately assign prospects and customers to e.g. the closest sales development rep or account executive.
RealZips Closest works with existing zip code-based territories, giving you the best of both worlds. You can set up account ownership assignment to allow the best-fit account executive to engage with the right customer, based on industry, skills, customer stage, distance, and more:
4. Instant distance analytics
RealZips Closest makes it possible to immediately analyze records in Salesforce by distance to critical locations. Closest locations can be sales team members, service team members, store locations, partner offices or airports.
Customer records can be given an automatic “Serviceability Index”. For example, a “best-fit” customer location may need to have a salesperson within 50 miles and a service location within 25 miles.
Your entire customer database can be analyzed by these distance metrics, making it possible to discover geographic areas that your team will be able to serve best. On the flip side, areas that can not be serviced in a cost-efficient and timely manner will automatically be red-flagged.
Powerful use cases for RealZips Closest
Here is a list of popular use cases for RealZips Closest,
that you will be able to configure for your team:
- Automated distance zones around service & sales representatives
and stores. - Assign incoming leads to the nearest store, partner channel,
or sales rep. - Send cases automatically to the nearest service technician or
partner service provider. - Immediately review each lead within at a distance of 15 miles from
an airport your team will travel to. - Divide the entire customer database by distance to the closest
sales rep and meeting venue. - Run marketing campaigns based on distance zones from events
and partner locations.
RealZips Closest:
What makes it possible to automatically relate salesforce records by distance?
After looking at these use cases as well as the challenges solved by RealZips Closest, you must be curious to see how this will work for your team.
RealZips Closest can be used to manage many distance relationships at the same time, making it possible to solve overlapping use cases. You can set up a number of different locations such as competitive outlets, field sales reps, own stores and more.
Here’s an example that will outline how you will be able to help you team succeed:
Relate distance data for 172 Apple stores automatically
Your Salesforce Administrator quickly relates all Zip codes with the closest Apple store. Instantly, your entire customer database in Salesforce will be related to the nearest Apple Store!
Display “Closest” locations on each Salesforce record
You can show closest locations in many different ways on for example Leads and Accounts. In the example below, the Closest Apple Store to the Account record is displayed. Keep in mind, this relationship between the Account and the Closest Location opens up endless possibilities for automation in your Salesforce Org. For example, you can immediately assign the Account to the closest Sales Engineer!
By adding this type of distance data to your existing Salesforce customer data, you will open up fantastic possibilities for your team. RealZips Closest will enhance your own Salesforce data in completely new ways, allowing for connecting faster with customers and removing logistical challenges.
Standard Salesforce reports, showcasing accounts by distance
Reports and analytics in Salesforce is nothing short of fantastic. Now, you can take reporting to the next level by adding RealZips Distance Zones!
You can create unprecedented reports, allowing your team to to analyze the accounts by distance zones to the closest locations.
In the screenshot below, 60,000+ accounts are automatically associated with the closest Apple Store. Notice how the distance zones are highlighted in different colors:
Actionable Salesforce reports
Empowered with these distance zones, your team can approach their customers based on distance. Customers within a 10 mile distance can instantly be invited to the closest store. For customers 30 miles or further away from a store, the goal could be to give them a meaningful online shopping experience.
Here’s another example. Your team is co-hosting a pop-up event at the Union Square Apple store. The report below filters out existing customers within 5 miles of the location. Next, run a report on these contacts, add to a Campaign and invite your customers to the upcoming event:
Drive success for marketing, sales and service
Go ahead. Start relating your Salesforce records by distance!
By now, we believe you have many ideas on how RealZips Closest feature will empower your team to market, sell and service in completely new ways. Your team will be able to minimize downtime and focus on areas where they can best serve the most number of customers.
When your are ready to automate business workflows and drive success with RealZips, simply go ahead and Book a Demo with us.
Ramp up Sales with Drive Time in Salesforce
Help Your Field Sales Team Spend Their Time More Productively
How should selling time be divided between existing customers and new leads? If too little time is spent with existing customers, long-term contracts will be lost. If not enough time is invested in building relations with new leads, not enough new business will be generated.
Catch-22 Paradox
Balancing selling time is a classic Catch-22 paradox; If you take great care of existing customers, it’s hard to find time with new leads. If you only chase new deals, you will lose existing customers.
Balance Sales Time
One method to combat this is simply putting in extra hours — doing more of both farming and hunting — however this is not sustainable. Instead, learn from successful sales professionals who are very effective in how they geographically manage their sales territories.
Avoid the Wild Goose Chase
Over the years, we’ve witnessed how certain sales people focused on a fairly small area of their existing sales territory. They build up relationships with potential customers in their own backyard. On the flip side, we have seen sales reps covering large territories, driving great distances in the process. Can you guess which type of sales professional is capable of building the most sustainable business for themselves?
Lead in Salesforce.com complete with the closest sales rep and service rep, plus approximate Drive Time in minutes:
The Marketing Campaign That Fizzled
We have all seen it before: The marketing team runs a great campaign and creates warm leads for the sales team. The sales team is excited and starts visiting the new leads. But after a few weeks, few of the once-warm leads are getting closer to a close.
Marketing Sending Sales out on Field Trips
Let’s say a marketing campaign generated 20 leads across a sales territory. The sales rep is excited and starts calling the leads and books 5 visits. The first visit turns out to be a 45 minutes drive and the second is a 2.5 hour field trip. The second lead just made our sales person spend almost a whole day of valuable selling time driving instead. From that point, the interest in pursuing more leads usually diminishes significantly.
Run Successful Marketing Campaigns Based on Drive Time
Fortunately, it’s now possible for marketing and sales to coordinate campaigns and lead follow-up in a much better way. By automatically adding the Drive Time between each sales representative and their respective leads in Salesforce, the Marketing team can drastically improve their targeted marketing campaigns.
Salesforce Report with 15,312 Leads Divided by Drive Time Zones
The report below is from Salesforce.com. All leads are automatically put into “Drive Time Zones”. The marketing team intensifies their campaigns in the areas closest to each sales person:
The Benefits of Drive Time Zones in Salesforce.Com Are Compelling:
Marketing can deliver highly targeted leads to the sales team.
Sales can reach more leads and build relations faster.
Customers are better serviced by having their sales rep close by.
Save the Sales Team Thousands of Hours in Drive Time
The people behind the Salesforce app RealZips.com spent years making Drive Time in Salesforce.com possible. Fortunately, your whole team can now take advantage of this new technology within days.