Field sales route planning: sort the customers first, then the roads

The short answer

Route planning does not start on the map but in the customer list. First you decide who needs to be visited and how often. Then the visits are bundled by territory and assigned to fixed weekdays. Road optimisation comes last — and it yields the least. I have seen field reps drive a perfectly calculated route to the wrong customers every single day. And one point many sales managers overlook: for employees without a fixed place of work, the drive to the first customer is working time. Whoever plans the tour is planning working time.

Step one: visit frequency by customer value

Not every customer needs a visit, and none needs one out of habit. A simple classification by revenue or potential has proven itself, each class with a visit frequency and a channel. The following table is an example with freely chosen values, not a standard:

Class	Who	Visit frequency	In between
A	largest customers and largest potential	every 4 weeks	phone as needed
B	stable middle	every 8–12 weeks	call in the in-between month
C	small customers	once or twice a year or when there is a reason	phone, email, callback on request
New	prospects with an appointment	as agreed	qualified by phone beforehand

The most important sentence about it: a C customer who happens to be on the way is not a reason for a visit. It is a reason for a call from the car — from the car park, not while driving.

Step two: territory days instead of zigzagging

The biggest time-waster is not the drive to the first customer but the back and forth between customers. The solution is old and still works: the territory is cut into four to five sub-areas, each given a fixed weekday. Monday north, Tuesday east, and so on.

This has three consequences. First, a day’s customers are close together. Second, customers know when the field rep is nearby — appointments get easier. Third, the plan becomes checkable: whoever is in the northern area on a Tuesday has a reason or a problem.

For the order within the day: drive to the furthest customer first and work your way back towards home. Or plan a loop if the area surrounds your home. Either beats the order in which appointments happened to be agreed.

The daily calculation: how many visits does a day hold?

Visit quotas without this calculation are guesswork. The following figures are a model calculation with freely chosen values:

Item	Zigzag	Territory day
Working time incl. travel	8:00 h	8:00 h
Drive home → first customer + last customer → home	1:00 h	1:00 h
Preparation and follow-up, notes, CRM	1:00 h	1:00 h
Remaining for visits and drives between them	6:00 h	6:00 h
Conversation + average drive to next customer	45 + 45 min	45 + 20 min
Visits per day	4	5–6

The break under § 4 ArbZG (Working Hours Act) comes on top; beyond six hours, 30 minutes are mandatory. The lever sits in a single line: the drive between customers. Whoever cuts it from 45 to 20 minutes gains one to two visits a day — with the same working time. No motivational speech achieves that.

Appointments that fit the route

The route rarely fails because of the software, but on the phone. Whoever offers the customer “When suits you?” gets an appointment right across the territory. Better:

“I’m regularly in your area on Tuesdays. Does the 7th or the 14th suit you, both in the morning?”

“I’m with a customer two streets away on Thursday anyway. Shall I drop by for twenty minutes afterwards?”

And for the customer who only wants an appointment outside the territory day:

“That works, but then by video or phone. In person I’m with you on Tuesday — which would you prefer?”

These sentences are example wordings. They work because they give the customer two options rather than an open question.

Travel time is working time — what follows for planning

On 10 September 2015 (C-266/14, Tyco), the Court of Justice of the European Union held that for workers without a fixed or habitual place of work, journeys between home and the first and last customer are working time within the meaning of the Working Time Directive. On 18 March 2020 (5 AZR 36/19), the Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Labour Court) classified these journeys as remunerable working time for a field service technician. A works agreement that deducted minutes per journey was void in that case because the applicable collective agreement stood in its way.

For tour planning this means three things. First, the upper limit under § 3 ArbZG — eight hours per working day, up to ten only with compensation — applies including the journeys. A plan with six visits three hours away is not an ambitious plan but an impermissible one. Second, the eleven-hour rest period under § 5 ArbZG applies: whoever gets back late in the evening may not be at the first customer at seven. Third, working time must be recorded. On 13 September 2022 (1 ABR 22/21), the Federal Labour Court derived a recording obligation from § 3 (2) no. 1 ArbSchG (Occupational Safety and Health Act).

Where there is a works council, § 87 (1) no. 6 BetrVG also applies. Tour planning or telematics software with location data is typically a technical device capable of monitoring conduct or performance — its introduction and use are subject to co-determination.

All of this concerns employees. For a self-employed commercial agent, a fixed tour requirement is itself an indication of instruction — that is covered in the article on sales partners and commercial agents.

Action list

1. Classify the customer list into A, B, C and New, and assign each class a visit frequency and a channel.
2. Cut the territory into four to five sub-areas and give each a fixed weekday.
3. Run the daily calculation with your own figures: actual conversation length, actual drive between customers over the last four weeks.
4. Switch appointment-setting to territory days: offer two concrete dates, not an open question.
5. Include the drives to the first and from the last customer as working time in the plan and check the limits in §§ 3 to 5 ArbZG.
6. Clarify working-time recording for field sales before anyone asks about it.
7. Involve the works council before introducing route planning or GPS software, not afterwards.
8. In the monthly pipeline review, don’t just count visits — ask how many of them were A or B customers.