This Holiday Season, many of us must be planning a nice backpacking trip or planned vacation. No matter how planned or unplanned the travels are, there are always surprise elements that show us bright stars during the day. Unknown road conditions, closed restaurants, busy roads, emergencies, roadblocks, and a lot more often arise out of blue. Imagine being on a business trip and having to face a situation like this! It would be difficult for the rep to fathom whether he should be stressed about the client meeting or these untoward situations.
“A business trip is a sophisticated backpacking trip”– a wise human
To reduce the stress levels of the business reps or the field reps, Maplytics, the 5-star rated, preferred geo-mapping solution on the Microsoft AppSource has a hidden gem of a feature named Point Of Interest or POI Location. Using this feature, the current location or any specific location can be marked as the location of interest on the map and places could be searched around that location. In this way, all the available restaurants, hotels, cafes, gas stations, airports, etc. could be plotted on the map around the location of interest. Let us have a broader look at how POI Location could be useful and how it benefits your business.
Lead generation on the go
Suppose a field rep is representing a chain of fashion houses and is on his way to a client meeting. In case he is following a planned, optimized route, he might reach the location before time or may have some spare time post-meeting. In such a situation, he might use POI Location and search for certain clothing stores, and retail outlets around him and try and set up a meeting with them or at least visit them and interact to collect information.
This could turn out to be a unique way to get people on board, generate leads, understand markets in a different region, interact with end users, and so on.
Quick lunch places near clients
Hopping in between meetings is a continuous task during business trips. Sometimes, the clients do not have provisions for a cafeteria within their premises, or the meeting places are at a neutral location away from a café/ restaurant, or the reps need to take up a pitstop during their travel to the next meeting to cover travel distance before halting for lunch. In any of the cases, the rep not being a regular in the area isn’t aware of good cafés and restaurants for food.
Using POI Location, they are enabled to plot the food facilities around them, the location of interest.
Ad hoc meeting places
When the field rep is on a client visiting spree, certain meetings get fixed at the very last moment. In that case, a proper spot to conduct the meeting needs to be plotted. It also happens that the client and the rep travel half a distance each and meet at a midpoint for the meeting. Finding a quiet place to sit and talk is essential then.
With POI Location, meeting-friendly hotels with conference/ meeting rooms, quiet cafes, restaurants, private meeting cabins, Air B&Bs, etc. could be plotted and utilized.
Emergency Gas stations, hospitals, etc.
An emergency rises without a prelude. It could be a medical need during travel, a flat tire, decreasing gas levels, mechanical or technical fault, lack of coffee or snacks, etc. for the traveling reps.
Finding and availing hospitals, gas stations, pharmacies, charging stations, food vending machines, and more becomes quick and easy with the POI Location feature. Once the location is specified, all the above emergency services could be plotted easily.
Multiple nearby options to choose from
During business travel, when stress and anxiety levels are high, one ends up availing the facility available at arm’s length or visible in front of the eyes. However, there are several similar options around the specified area which all could be plotted and visualized together. This variety is put on display with the POI Feature. All the options for a hospital/ nursing home, blood bank, hotels, libraries, theatres, and a lot more can be explored and displayed with a single click over the map and the user can then choose from the same.
Detailed addresses, directions, routes
Once a particular place of interest has been selected, the feature provides the proper address to that place, it could be added to the plotted route and can be used for driving directions!
Thus, comprises a few of the obvious applications of POI Location. Considering the depth and the versatility of the feature, a lot more can be achieved.
The possibilities of application are immense and can be stretched as far as we can imagine. You can write to us at crm@inogic.com for your mapping queries, to explore the product further, a free trial of 15 days, or a personalized demo within Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM / Dataverse.
For in-depth knowledge, do visit our Website or the Microsoft AppSource. For further details, you can hop on to our Blogs, Client Testimonials, and Video Library.
Until then,
Let’s plan a Holiday Trip!
