Purpose of action plan templates in retail execution
Key Takeaway
An action plan template is a reusable set of tasks and flows that a sales manager associates with many visits, so the same activities don't have to be added to each visit by hand.
An action plan template is a reusable list of the activities a field rep performs during a store visit, such as inventory checks, planogram checks, and promotion checks. Sales managers build a template once and attach it to many visits, so they don't have to add the same tasks to every visit by hand.
Why action plan templates exist
An action plan template is a reusable framework for scheduling visits in which the set of activities stays the same from visit to visit. You create one template and associate it with multiple visits.
Templates save sales managers work when they create visits. A sales manager picks the template that best suits a visit and associates it, instead of adding individual tasks to each visit manually.
Marco manages field reps for a frozen-food brand. Each visit to his 30 grocery stores includes the same four activities: an inventory check, a planogram check, a promotion check, and an in-store survey. Marco builds one action plan template that holds those four activities. When he creates the visits, he associates that template with each one. He doesn't add the four activities to each visit one by one.