trakki
Route planning for manufacturers' reps: big territory
By Manuel Ober · · 5 min read
The problem is not the driving, it is the choosing
A manufacturers' rep with 400 customers across three provinces asks the same question every Monday: where to this week? They know where the customers are. But 400 is too many to carry in their head.
Most people solve it with habit: the same rounds, the same customers. Customers at the edge of the territory see the rep once a year. That is where someone else picks up the orders.
Due dates instead of habit
Every customer gets a cycle: the big specialist dealer every three weeks, the small shop every eight, the new customer every two until they are up and running. Cycle plus last visit tells you who is due.
With 400 customers you do not set that 400 times. Many reps already sort their customers into segments: A+ for the most important, then A, B and C, and D for customers with no visit target. If your Excel file carries these segments, trakki asks once during the import how often you want to visit each one. It suggests, for example, ten visits a year for A+ and five for C. For everyone else you set one cycle in one go, say every 60 days.
The map shows it in colour: red overdue, yellow due soon, green fine. That changes the question. Instead of “where to?” you ask: where are most of the red and yellow dots this week? You see it at a glance. If your Excel file includes turnover or quantity, you colour the map by trend and see where a customer is slipping.
How the list gets onto the map is in the guide Get your Excel customer list onto a map.
Big territories mean multi-day tours
Cover three provinces and you do not drive home every evening. Rule of thumb: staying the night pays off when the drive home and the drive back out the next morning add up to more than two hours, and a second full day is waiting in the area. You pick the hotel near the next day's first customer, not in the town you know.
In trakki you mark the overnight stay in the weekly plan. That day then ends at the hotel, and the next one starts there. More in the guide Overnight or drive home.
A week with trakki
Friday. Open the map: where are the red and yellow dots piling up? Most of them are in one area, two hours from home. You tap “Plan week”. trakki lays out the week by due date and works in drive times, opening hours and your lunch break. After that you add an overnight stay there for Tuesday, and trakki recalculates the days it affects.
On the road. The day is on your phone. During the visit you write one line: what was discussed, what was ordered, when to come back. On the next visit you read it back in the customer file. For the drive to the next customer, trakki opens Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze.
A cancellation. The third customer cannot make it today. You drag them to another day and see the detour straight away. For the free slot, trakki suggests customers nearby.
End of the month. You pass your visits on as an Excel file, for your bookkeeping or for the principal. The file holds every visit and phone call, one row each. Whatever does not concern a principal, you delete in Excel beforehand.
If you have several principals
If you represent a tool maker and a screw manufacturer, each principal gets a category with its own colour. A customer can carry several, say both principals plus “Key account”. On the map you show or hide a category. That way you see only one principal's customers. trakki always plans the week across all due customers, though, not per principal.
Why the customer list sits on your phone
For a self-employed rep, the customer list is the business. If it sits on a software company's server, that company's rules apply. trakki has no such server, and you need no account. The list sits on your phone.
If you use a second device, sync runs through your own cloud: Google Drive or OneDrive. Your NAS at home works too. A file with your data then sits there. The file is encrypted with your sync password. If you lose your phone, you sign in to the same cloud on the new one, enter the sync password and your data is back. So keep the password somewhere safe.
For address search and drive times, trakki asks the map service Stadia Maps. A search sends the address; drive times send only coordinates. If you type in a customer's name field, the name goes too, so trakki can suggest the business. Stadia never gets your notes. Whatever else goes online is listed in the privacy notice.
What trakki is not
trakki is not a CRM: it writes no quotes, records no orders and manages no teams. It plans the week and records the visits. What a CRM is built for and what not is in the guide Field sales software. Orders stay in your system. If your system exports the customers as an Excel file, trakki reads it in. The visits go back as an Excel file. On the home page you can try trakki in your browser with sample customers.
Frequently asked questions
Can I keep the customers of several principals in one app?
Yes, through categories with their own colour. A customer can carry several. trakki always plans the week across all due customers, though, not per principal.
Does the customer list belong to me if I change principal?
The list sits on your phone, not on a trakki server, and you need no account. What you may keep after a change and what you must delete is set by your agency agreement, not by the app. In trakki you remove the old principal's category. If they need your visits, you pass them on as an Excel file, after deleting the other principals' visits in Excel.
How many customers can I create?
No upper limit has been tested, so none is given here. For trying it out, the app comes with 140 made-up customers spread across Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland. They show you on the map what a large territory with due dates looks like before you load your own list.
How do I get my customers in?
As an Excel file (.xlsx). There is a template in the app. trakki recognises the columns, and you quickly confirm them. Name and address are enough; you need no coordinates.
Does trakki record orders too?
No. trakki plans the visits and keeps your notes. The order stays in your order system.