We all know the importance of locational aspect of business data and how it can help an organization to get the maximum value out of their CRM data within Microsoft Dynamics 365. Having a geo analytical mapping tool like Maplytics that provides the ability to extract the geo-coordinates from Dynamics CRM data using the geocoding process helps an organization to visualize Dynamics CRM data on the map.
One of the most used features in Maplytics is Proximity or Radius Search that improves an organization’s locational awareness of nearby CRM records. It also helps to view the drive time in map in Dynamics 365 from current location to a record’s location. Businesses across verticals use Radius Search to gain enhanced insights about their nearby customers, prospects, and competitors with powerful map visualizations within Dynamics CRM.
What is Proximity Search?
As the name suggests, the Proximity/Radius Search feature in Maplytics helps users to find nearby customers and prospects around a particular location. The ability to search nearby Dynamics CRM records around a location empowers users across different departments in organizations across verticals to gain locational awareness of their customers and prospects.
Proximity Search based on Distance and Time
Maplytics, a preferred app for geo-mapping allows users to perform Proximity Searches based on Distance or Time on dynamics 365 CRM records. For example, users can find nearby Dynamics CRM records on a map in 2 miles radius around a particular location or find nearby Dynamics CRM records within 5 minutes travel time from a specific location.
To learn more about Proximity Search based on Time refer to this article.
Concentric Proximity Search
Maplytics also allows users to search for Dynamics CRM records in various proximities. Users can search for nearby Dynamics CRM records on a map in up to 3 proximity values around a particular location. Users also have the option to filter the concentric proximity search results based on the proximity distance from the current location and by proximity zones.
Why should an organization use Proximity Search?
The benefits of using the Proximity Search feature in Maplytics are many, but here are some of the best and exciting use cases that we have come around.
Finding nearby Dynamics CRM records to schedule an appointment
When we first introduced the Proximity Search feature, the most common use case was finding nearby Dynamics CRM records to schedule a sales or service appointment.
The users preferred using Proximity Search based on distance to see all the nearby customers and prospects around a particular location to get an idea of drive time in map in Dynamics 365 and schedule appointments. This helped many users to manage their appointments efficiently and improved their on-time performance while reducing the number of missed appointments.
Also, many of the users used the proximity search feature whenever one of their appointment was canceled to quickly find the nearby customer and prospects in the vicinity of that canceled appointment location. This helped the users to utilize the time that would have been wasted otherwise and increase their sales performance significantly.
The Proximity Search based on Time helped users to narrow down the Dynamics CRM records that they could travel to within a specified time, thus avoiding the uncertainty of whether they would be able to reach the customer and have a meeting with them in time.
Strategic placement of a new business
This is one of the recent use cases that we encountered. Let’s say a business wants to open a new store in a particular location, determining the best location that would ensure maximum footfall without geographically analyzing the customers can be inefficient.
By using the concentric proximity search feature, the organization can search for nearby customers and prospects to decide whether the location of their new store has maximum customers and prospects within a reachable distance.
For example, if the density of customers and prospects within a half an hour drive time is more than that in the walkable distance, chances are the store is going to struggle to generate more footfall.
However, if the organization performs this analysis before determining the location of the store and take into account and analyze all the potential store location to find the one that has the maximum density of customers and prospects in the vicinity, the store is going to be a blazing success!
Geofencing around a particular store location to avoid conflicts of interest
Now let’s say you are in the franchising business and one of the most crucial factors for your business is to ensure that you don’t sell the franchise that falls in the protected area of another franchise.
The concept of protected areas is simple. Legally the Franchising Organization is bound not to sell another franchise in particular proximity to other franchisee’s to ensure that the business of other stores is not affected.
Ensuring this with Maplytics is extremely simple. The organization needs to perform a proximity search around the new location that they are planning to sell and visualize all the nearby stores to see if any of them falls in the proximity of the new location.
If the proximity search results are zero, the organization can rest assured that the new location is clear from any conflict of interest with other stores!
Enhancing the reach of the Marketing Campaigns
An organization that is promoting business to the nearby regions needs to have a visibility of nearby competitors. This insights into the location of competitors can help an organization to make strategic marketing campaigns that can reap the most ROI and help the business to be competitive.
For example, if a Restaurant wants to promote their business, the best way would be to find all their nearby competitors, have a geographical insight before deploying a team for a site survey and design the marketing campaign to ensure that have strategically placed their signs in the best locations.
All this can help the business save many expenses because they could plan out their actions by gaining a geographical awareness before taking any actions that would incur unnecessary costs like a poorly planned sign!
Endless Possibilities
These were some of the most interesting real-world use cases that we came around since we introduced the Proximity Search feature.
With almost 80% of business containing location component, having the ability to search for nearby Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Competitor or any other custom Dynamics 365 entity on a map and gaining the geographical awareness can help organizations grow their business rapidly.
The use of the Proximity Search can be endless given the fact that every business has their unique requirement and can use this feature in ways that we have not imagined!
Let us know how you would use the Proximity Search feature and what benefits can your business experience with it!
Maplytics is a leading geo-analytical app for Dynamics 365 and is one of the first mapping solutions to be Certified for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CfMD). Maplytics allows you to map dynamics 365 CRM data to provide powerful map visualization and routing capabilities within Dynamics 365 to offer insightful location-based business insights. By using the powerful feature of Maplytics like Appointment Planner, Route Optimization, Proximity Search based on Distance and Time, Concentric Proximity Search based on Distance, Along the Route Search, Analytical Dashboards, and Territory Mapping & Management, an organization can drive better sales, improve business processes and engage right customers at the right time.
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