Managing a field sales team is tricky because you often need to know what the sales reps are doing while on the clock. Are they visiting the assigned region or zone? Do they spend quality time with clients? Are they taking detours or longer scenic routes? The best GPS tracking apps for sales reps can alleviate these fears.
A sales rep tracking app helps you stay on top of outside sales reps’ activities from the comfort of your office. You can track sales reps' locations in real time and recreate their routes taken during the day. The best apps also track the miles covered and time spent at each location. Keep reading to explore our top five GPS tracking apps for sales reps.
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The Best GPS Tracking Apps For Sales Reps: At A Glance
If you’re short on time, here’s a sneak peek of the best GPS tracking software for sales. We tested these apps rigorously on various fronts, such as GPS location, time, and mileage tracking. We ranked the apps by performance:
Timeero — Best GPS tracker to track field sales mileage, time, and location
AllGeo — Good For Sales Rep Location Tracking
Outfield — Good For Sales Route Planning
B2Field — Good For Mileage and Location Tracking
Badger Maps – Best Route Optimization For Sales
5 GPS Tracking Apps for Sales Reps: A Deep Dive
We’ve highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of each GPS tracking app below to help you make an informed business decision. This article will assist you in choosing an app that will best help your outside sales reps hit their quotas and metrics.
Timeero – Best Overall GPS Tracking App For Sales Reps
Timeero iOS and Android apps are easy to use.
Pros:
Segmented tracking: Know each location agents visit and the time spent with each customer.
Automatic mileage tracking: Generate IRS-compliant mileage logs for accurate reimbursement and tax claims.
Real-time GPS location tracking: Sales rep's locations are updated every other minute.
Offline mode: Timeero continues tracking without internet access and syncs data upon reconnection.
Easy to use apps: It only takes a few minutes to figure out theTimeero mobile app.
Affordable: Key features are available for as low as $8 per user each month.
Cons:
Add-on tool: Segmented tracking is offered as an add-on tool.
Timeero instills accountability and efficiency in your sales processes to improve team performance. It gives you a 360-degree view of field sales rep activity, allowing you to monitor locations visited, time spent with each customer, routes taken, and mileage covered.
Segmented Tracking
Timeero stands out of the crowd, thanks to its Segmented Tracking feature – a game changer for outside sales teams in different industries. The feature provides you with a breakdown of your sales rep's daily activity, showing:
Locations visited with the exact time and length of each visit with clients.
Distance traveled between locations, including the duration of each.
Segmented Tracking in Action
Segmented tracking automates location and time tracking.
Segmented Tracking lets you measure your sales team's key performance indices (KPIs). Suppose your sales force is prospecting across a region. It can be challenging to confirm whether they visited the locations they claim, especially if the addresses were not predefined. It can be even more difficult to determine if they are spending quality time with prospects.
Traditional apps require sales reps to clock in or check in when they reach a prospect’s location and out as they leave. This way, timestamps and GPS points are used to authenticate each visit.
But, this process isn’t reliable — it’s prone to human error, and the labor-intensive approach can take attention away from original tasks, hurting overall productivity.
Segmented tracking’s hands-off approach solves both problems, allowing you to derive more insights from your sales rep tracking data. The sales rep will clock in once, prospect the entire day, and clock out at the end of their shift.
The app segments the sales rep’s trip based on their stops. You can see where they stopped, how much time they spent with each customer, the distance between locations, and the total mileage covered. It also breaks down the rep’s time into driving and idle time during the day.
You can use this information to:
Determine the average time to nurture a client or complete a sale
Set benchmarks and KPIs for future evaluation of sales reps
GPS Location and Time Tracking
Timeero’s real-time GPS tracking provides accurate location data. When you click “who’s working,” you are shown a map with pins representing each rep's location. You can zoom in to view granular details such as the total time the sales representative has worked.
If you ever doubt the reasoning behind a sales rep’s missed visit, route replay will help set the record straight. This feature recreates the sales rep's journey after clocking in. You can click on each breadcrumb to see where the rep was at a specific time of the day and the speed at which they traveled.
Timeero uses breadcrumb technology to provide detail-rich data.
If your workforce frequents remote or dangerous areas, knowing their location enhances employee security. For example, if you spot a sales rep stuck in the same location in the middle of nowhere, you can reach out to them to check on their wellbeing and status.
Mileage Tracking
Timeero uses motion detection technology to record mileage when the vehicle exceeds the predetermined speed threshold. The app doesn’t track mileage when the sales rep is walking or stuck in traffic.
This enables you to reimburse sales reps fairly and compute IRS tax deductions more accurately. If you pay salaried sales representatives to drive a certain number of miles, Timeero allows you to see how long they drove and calculate their reimbursement based on the agreed upon rates.
The suggested mileage feature assists in route planning. It analyzes a sales rep's initial visit and suggests a shorter route for subsequent visits. This reduces drive time, allowing your sales rep to spend more time with potential clients. Taking shorter routes also reduces fuel and vehicle maintenance costs.
Timeero Pricing:
Includes a 14-day free trial. Pricing starts at $4 per user each month.
AllGeo – Good For Sales Reps Needing Location Tracking
AllGeo mobile has a clean user interface.
Pros:
GPS location tracking – Tracks employee location automatically or via text message.
Sales rep time tracking – Records timestamps when a sales rep enters and leaves the customer location.
Mileage tracking – Uses automatic mileage tracking for easy recording.
Cons:
No route planning – Doesn’t enable reps to plan or optimize their routes during the day.
AllGeo tracks a sales reps' GPS location, but its most notable strength is time tracking. Before you can track the team’s field activities, you must create geofenced client sites. The app doesn’t auto-suggest location addresses; you have to type the exact address or add precise longitude and latitude details.
Location and Time Tracking
AllGeo records timestamps when the employee arrives and departs an assigned customer location. The zero-touch approach used by AllGeo saves your rep the hassle of constantly clocking in and out during every customer visit. The tracker isn’t as refined as Timeero’s segmented tracking tool, but it helps determine the time each rep spends with assigned clients.
There are two ways to track a sales rep’s location.
Monitor Tab- displays the last known location of the sales representative. You don’t get a turn-by-turn route with this option, but you can generate breadcrumbs reports to see the places a sales rep has visited, including when they were inside and outside of geofenced zones.
Text Message- a link is sent via text that captures the worker’s time and location data. This method is not the best option because reps must remember to read their text messages.
AllGeo map visualization lets you determine sales rep locations.
Mileage Tracking
AllGeo’s mileage tracking is entirely automatic. By default, the app automatically tracks mileage during the sales rep's working hours (9 AM - 5 PM), whether they start a shift or not. You can adjust the tracking range to accommodate worker schedules.
Sales managers can set different clock stages to prevent the app from tracking private and commuter mileage. The only issue is if a sales rep takes a day off to run personal errands, AllGeo will still track their mileage and add it to your business log.
AllGeo Pricing:
Includes a 14-day free trial. Pricing starts at $5 per user each month.
Outfield – Good For Sales Route Planning
Outfield mobile interface displays plenty of information about the reps field activities.
Pros:
Route planning – Enables reps to plan and optimize routes.
Team activity tracking – Records the time an employee checks in at a customer location.
Deal pipeline management – Lets sales rep manage the lead nurturing process.
Cons:
No real-time GPS location tracking – Doesn’t track real-time location of sales reps.
Outfield is a CRM and sales gamification app geared towards improving sales team performance. The web app presents a steep learning curve for first-time users, but the mobile applications are easier to use.
Route Planning and Optimization
Outfield's standout feature is its route planning and optimization tool, which is available on mobile only. This functionality uses historical data and real-time traffic updates to suggest the best route. It helps sales reps avoid snarl-ups and arrive at customer locations in time.
Creating routes via smartphone is pretty simple. Navigate to “places,” tap “view route,” and select the assigned locations by tapping respective pins on the map. Lastly, click “route” at the bottom of the screen to generate an optimal route. Edit the route manually or use the “optimize” button, and that’s it.
Outfield can track the sales rep's time spent at a customer location, but it’s a hassle. When a sales rep enters the geofence, Outfield sends a notification, prompting them to check in. Similarly, it notifies them as they leave the geofenced area, requiring them to check out.
Reps can take pictures and attach them as proof they have visited the client, and even add notes about their meeting. Outfield records the check-in and out times and computes the total time spent at a location.
While the Outfield time and location tracking features work, there are caveats. The time recorded will only be accurate if the sales rep remembers to clock in and out. Thankfully, the app flags check-ins and check-outs outside the geofenced zones, allowing you to investigate each case.
Thanks to the chat feature, the sales team can keep in touch through private or group messages while still in the field. Beyond that, Outfield gamifies sales with a head-to-head matchup and leaderboard for reps.
Outfield Pricing:
Includes a 30-day free trial. Outfield uses a quote-based pricing model.
Task tracking – Records scheduled, complete and failed tasks.
Cons:
Faulty offline mode – Doesn’t work properly without an internet connection.
Comparatively pricey – It’s fairly pricey compared to other GPS trackers.
B2Field is a workforce management app that enables you to track field sales teams. It lets you create geofenced client addresses called “places.” You can create tasks using these addresses and assign them to your sales reps. B2Field has a CRM module that allows you to link client addresses to geofenced areas or create geofences using customer data in the CRM.
Sales Rep Location Tracking
B2Field notifies a sales rep when they enter or exit a geofenced area. Rather than clocking them in or out, the app notifies them and records the timestamp. You can determine the time they spent with a client by calculating the difference between entry and exit time stamps.
The ‘map’ displays a mobile sales rep’s location, which is refreshed in real time. With a detailed report of their movement, you can see when a sales rep is at a standstill, if they’re moving, and where they’re headed.
B2Field tracks every sales rep’s location in real-time.
Mileage Tracking
B2Field has three mileage tracking modes: walking, driving, and special. In the walking mode, B2Field recorded mileage when our speed was as low as 1 mile per hour. However, when we switched to the driving mode, it recorded mileage for speeds exceeding 4 miles per hour.
Unlike OutField, B2Field doesn’t allow you to add all customer locations to the system to create one optimal route. Instead, you can only select one location and hit the direction icon on your mobile app to find the best route. You must repeat that process for all the other places you visit, which makes the process tedious, especially if you have to visit multiple customers daily.
While B2Field has an offline mode, it isn’t effective. Whenever we switched off the internet connection, the app sent a notification saying, “Lost connection to server.” The tasks and places were inaccessible, rendering the app useless without the internet.
The trip reports feature provides details such as routes the rep took, stops, mileage, and duration of trips. You can also create site visit (POI) reports to verify whether your sales reps have visited places they say they visited.
B2Field Pricing:
Includes a 7-day free trial. Pricing starts at $20 per user each month.
Badger Maps – Best Route Optimization For Sales
Badger Maps offers navigation assistance.
Pros:
Powerful route planning tool – Helps you plan routes by customer type or category.
Easy to create customer locations – Easy to create places, since there’s no boundary created by geofencing.
Easy-to-use apps – The mobile and desktop apps are easy to use and navigate.
Cons:
No geofencing – Can’t create geofenced locations to prevent inaccurate clock ins.
No offline mode – Works only with a stable internet connection.
Badger Maps works best for teams that need help optimizing routes related to customer meetings. Its web and mobile apps are easy to use for all, including total beginners. The only issue is that it doesn’t work without the internet and isn’t apt for outside sales teams in remote areas.
Route Optimization
Badger Maps offers different ways to create optimal routes. Take, for example, a pharmaceutical sales rep who needs to visit dentists in town or on one side of the city. The rep can import data from your CRM or upload a CSV or Excel file.
Badger Maps uses the data to create dentist addresses as pins on a map. Using the Lasso or radius tool, the rep can highlight a territory they want to tackle. Badger Maps will create a list of all dentists within the highlighted region.
The rep can edit the list accordingly and click “create route.”Badger Maps creates an optimal route based on the dentists' locations. The rep can edit the route to their liking and save it. The rep can open the save route on the smartphone and click “Go” to use it for navigational purposes.
Badger Maps Pricing
Includes a 7-day free trial. Pricing starts at $58 per user each month.
Is It Legal for a Sales Company To Track Its Salespeople via GPS?
Yes, it’s legal for your company to track salespeople with GPS. However, you must adhere to specific laws and regulations. Before implementing the GPS tracking system, you must inform your sales reps and obtain their consent.
You should also create an employee GPS tracking policy outlining the purpose and scope of tracking. Remember, you should track sales employees during work hours only and comply with the underlying federal and state data protection and privacy laws.
Find The Best GPS Tracking App For Mobile Sales Teams
The best GPS tracking apps for sales build a culture of transparency and accountability. Newer sales reps will be more inclined to produce high quality work knowing that they are being monitored throughout their day. GPS Tracking helps managers monitor sales operations and establish performance benchmarks to pinpoint reps who aren’t pulling their weight.
With that being said, all GPS tracking apps aren’t built the same — some are more apt at tracking location, while others excel at tracking mileage. What will work the best for you depends on your most pressing needs.
If you need an app that can track GPS location, time, and mileage, Timeero ticks the right boxes. It enables you to monitor field team activity and determine their time with each client. Start a 14-day free trial today to get a first-hand feel for Timeero's capabilities.
GPS Tracking For Sales Reps: FAQs
How Do I Track a Salesman’s Location With Timeero?
Ask the sales rep to install Timeero on their smartphone. You will be able to see their real-time location on the web without leaving the office.
How Does GPS Tracking Improve Sales Rep Performance and Accountability?
GPS tracking encourages sales reps to be where they need to be throughout the day. Monitoring through GPS tracking helps ensure reps complete assigned tasks at the right time. These practices can significantly improve their performance
What Are the Benefits of Using GPS Tracking To Manage a Sales Team?
GPS tracking systems help monitor sales team locations and optimize routes, improving efficiency and productivity. Other benefits include increased employee safety, reduced costs, and accurate reimbursement.
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Samson is a mathematician turned content marketer specializing in SaaS and Tech content. He focuses on the practical aspects of software systems while keeping abreast of the industry’s cutting-edge principles to create informative and engaging content. When he’s not writing, Samson spends time playing or watching soccer.
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