Tour planning is the precondition for continuous customer servicing on a weighted basis and the utilisation of the turnover potential of a travelling district. It secures a reasonable commercial relationship between input and output of your customer calls. In this sense, vehicle routing and scheduling is an organisational means to increase your economic efficiency.

Vehicle routing and scheduling is done in three steps

1. Categorisation of customers by ABC analysis
2. Categorisation of customers by regional aspects
3. Distribution of calls on customers determined in this fashion

1. Categorisation of customers by ABC analysis

Customers are categorised by their turnover with the sales representative's company. The customer with the highest turnover is placed on the No. 1 position, followed by the customer with the second highest turnover on No. 2, and so on down to the customer with the lowest turnover. The sales figures are cumulated and the result, the total sales of the travelling district, appears in the cumulating column following the last turnover-relevant customer. Experience shows that in many cases the 80:20 rule applies, which means that 20% of customers are responsible for 80% of sales. Accordingly, this section is called the A-customer segment. A good ABC analysis features both the contribution margin and the potential of the customers in order to determine strategic customers for the tour plan.

Example of an ABC analysis (reduced to 20 customers for better visibility)

The A-customer segment should end with customer Gebhardt. In this case, 30% of customers yield 84% of sales. From customer #7 to customer #10 you have the B-customer segment, whereas the section from #11 to #20 represents the C-segment. On the other side you will notice that the utilisation of the potential varies. This consideration reveals the strategic customers Kleinhans, Auenstein, Siegel, Fernandi and Holzexperte. Strategic customers have to be visited like A-customers in order to improve the utilisation of their potential. From the circle of non-buying customers, you should service the 4 with the greatest potential.

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