We’ve talked a lot about using Map Business Online as a MapPoint replacement, but we also get a lot of calls and emails from users who recently purchased a competitor’s mapping service but have decided they made the wrong choice.
Hey. It happens. I tried the Hannaford grocery’s pre-cooked BBQ ribs recently, because they pulled the Lloyd BBQ Company brand I was used to. I won’t do that again. Sometimes you try something and it just doesn’t work out.
Maptitude by Caliper is a great low-end GIS desktop software. But compared to Map Business Online, it is not a business mapping software. Is more expensive and it’s much more complicated then it should be for a general business user. A customer recently signed up for Map Business Online, abandoning a valid Maptitude license after their Maptitude mapping genius left the company. Not one person in the organization could figure out how to create and maintain territories. It was easier and cheaper to find a new solution.
Complicated map? could be, but it’s easy to use.
To me, business mapping software as a software category sits right between basic navigation software, like MapQuest, and low-end GIS software. It has to meet certain criteria:
- It’s got to be dirt simple – Now dirt simple means different things to different people. We’re all somewhere on a continuum of technical capability. But it should be accessible by regular – non-GIS database enabled – business people. If you can use Microsoft Excel at a basic level, you should be able to use business mapping software. You should also be able to easily try it for free
- It should include a basic zoom-able map of the USA with zip codes, counties and states. You should not have to pay more for base map data
- You should be able to import a generous allowance of address data records. Beware of the daily limits and mysterious caps on processing through-put found in most cloud-based mapping services.
- Sharing view-only interactive web maps should be achievable at no or low-cost. Maps are for sharing and communicating. If it’s hard to share maps, keep looking.
- Cloud-based software is state-of-the-art. Cloud services do not require software installations. Map data and software updates happen while you’re asleep. I sold my horse and buggy in a yard sale, and gave my music CD’s away for free. Now I drive a Tesla and listen to music through Spotify.
- If you are replacing MapPoint, it should feel right to you in short order. No nagging doubts that this isn’t the right fit. Get a web demo, ask some questions. These aids should give you a basic sense of the tool’s replacement value for your organization.
- Technical assistance should be easily activated by chat or email. If you’re waiting more than six business hours or not getting responses, “Next!”
Changing your mind happens in business. After all, the one thing we can count on in business is change. So my only advice is to remember the great realization in When Harry Met Sally, “Because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
Map Business Online is the certified easy-to-use business mapping tool. Your preferred choice for sales territory mapping, expansion planning, market analysis, customer mapping, and having fun with business maps. You’ve found your source for heat maps, customer visualizations, drive time analysis, radius searches and zip code maps.
We’re here to help and we’d like you to start using Map Business Online as your business mapping software as soon as possible.
Find out why over 25,000 business users log into www.MapBusinessOnline.com
Contact: Geoffrey Ives geoffives@spatialteq.com (800) 425-9035, (207) 939-6866
MapPoint users – please consider www.MapBusinessOnline.com as your MapPoint Replacement.
Please read customer reviews or review us at Capterra, or at the Salesforce.com AppExchange.
