VanillaSoft Enhances Geographical Information System
VanillaSoft has enhanced it geographical information system (GIS) to improve workflow efficiency for salespeople.
"Let's say you're going into an area and want to see who you have in that area based on certain characteristics. Within VanillaSoft you can look at a map and see all the contacts that you have that are [for example] over 100 employees, over X in revenue, that are in X industry. You can view on a map and see the density and see the number of contacts that you have in your system in that particular area. It really allows you to drill down on your customer and your prospect data, not just on a geographical basis but to overlay the geographical basis with the actual profile of the customer or prospect that you're looking for," says David Hood, CEO of VanillaSoft.
Specific enhancements include filters, routing, and other capabilities. Geolocation filters use latitude and longitude to map and visualize customer locations, allowing users to group nearby leads (for example, by city, neighborhood, or street) that can then be assigned to specific sales reps or teams. Additionally, a geolocation filter can be combined with an intellective routing filter to further refine contacts assigned to specific reps or teams based on characteristics, such as how many times they have been contacted and the channels on which they have been contacted.
The routing enhancements include directional routing and proximity routing. Directional routing builds on a geolocation filter by determining the path on the map that dictates the order in which leads will be worked. Proximity routing allows contacts to be routed within a radius based either on a latitude/longitude geolocation point or a ZIP code.
Additional capabilities include a nearby appointments feature and time zone features. The nearby appointments feature uses the latitude/longitude point or ZIP code of an appointment to highlight other nearby appointments in the calendar that are within a predetermined number of miles. As for the time zone features, time zone calculations are done automatically based on ZIP code or area code, but manual updates are also possible to ensure accuracy.
"You can work either with latitude and longitude, or with ZIP code. This gives companies a functionality that I'm not aware is available on any other sales engagement platform. For appointment setting, for companies that have salespeople out on the road, and also for understanding where your customers and prospects are and to be able to target them geographically, this is an incredibly powerful functionality," Hood says.