The market numbers
5.1visits a day for an average field rep
13.9for the top ten percent
2.07for the bottom ten percent
18-40%reduction in mileage from route planning
Why visit count misleads
A visit counts as a visit whether or not a conversation happened. A quick drop-in for the record and a full conversation look identical in a report. So the headline metric becomes a visit with a result: an order, a signed document, an agreement recorded with a date.
What to measure
- visits with a result against all visits
- average deal size per outlet
- the share of outlets where the order is smaller than the previous one
- mileage and time on the road per visit
- the share of outlets visited as planned on the route
How to get data without relying on words
- The order gets recorded in the system on the spot rather than from memory in the evening.
- A photo of the shelf or of the signed document as proof of the visit.
- A geotag at the moment the order is recorded.
- The route gets planned in advance and compared against what happened.
Route planning gives you more than oversight: clustering outlets cuts mileage by roughly a fifth, and building the route as a graph cuts it by up to forty percent. That converts directly into visit count.
What to do about the spread inside a team
- Compare the routes: the difference may be in how dense the outlets are rather than in the people.
- Spend a day out with the strong rep and a day with the weak one.
- Compare the share of visits with a result rather than the number of visits.
- Move the strong rep's practice into the written rules, not into a piece of advice.