Beat plan
In Arabic خطة الجولات (Beat plan)
A beat plan groups a rep’s outlets into beats, each a cluster of nearby customers covered in one day, and sets which beat is worked on which day.
In plain words
Beat plan and journey plan are largely two names for the same thing; beat is the word common in consumer goods distribution. Where a difference is drawn, the beat is the cluster of outlets, and the plan says on which day each beat is worked.
Beats are drawn so that one day’s outlets lie close together and the rep’s week is balanced, with a similar number of calls each day. Each beat is then worked in the same order every time it comes round.
The common mistake is drawing beats from the customer list rather than from the map. Two neighbouring shops end up on different days, and the rep drives past one to reach the other.
- Outlets
- 90
- Working days a week
- 6
- Beats, one a day
- 6
- Outlets per beat
- 15
In Axon Suite
How Axon Suite handles it
Axon Suite calls this a journey plan: you put each rep’s customers on weekdays from a map, and can split marked customers evenly across days by area.
Feature
Weekly journey plans on a map
Put each rep’s customers on weekdays from a map, in the order they are visited. At midnight in your time zone the plan becomes that day’s route in the rep app. A skipped stop needs a reason, and unplanned visits are counted apart from planned ones.
Open: Weekly journey plans on a map