Outlet Health Score: How FMCG Teams Spot At-Risk Retailers Before They Go Dormant

Quick answer: An outlet health score is a 0–100 rating for each retail outlet built from four signals: order frequency, visit recency, growth and product width. Outlets fall into Star, Healthy, At Risk, Critical or New bands, so field teams can act on declining outlets before they stop ordering.

Key takeaways

• "Total outlets" overstates real coverage. Many outlets on the beat haven't ordered in months.

• Four signals are enough: order frequency, visit recency, growth and product width.

• Each band needs a clear action, or the score becomes another unused number.

• The score is only as honest as the visit data, so capture orders during geofenced check-ins.

Why is outlet count the wrong number?

Ask a regional manager how many outlets they cover and you will get a large, round number. Ask how many ordered in each of the last three months and the answer is usually much smaller. The gap is made up of outlets that ordered once at launch, outlets visited but rarely billed, and outlets that quietly moved to a competitor. None of them show up as a problem in a sales report, because a report of sales only shows who bought.

An outlet health score turns that gap into a list with names on it.

What signals make up an outlet health score?

1. Order frequency

How many times did the outlet order in the period, compared with how often it is visited? An outlet on a weekly beat that orders twice a month is behaving very differently from one that orders every visit.

2. Visit recency

How many days since the last visit? Outlets that drop off the plan rarely stay loyal for long, and missed visits are often the first sign that a beat is overloaded.

3. Growth

Is the outlet's order value rising or falling compared with the previous period? A steady decline over two or three months is the clearest early warning.

4. Product width

How many of your SKUs or categories does the outlet carry? Outlets that stock only one hero SKU are easy for a competitor to take. Wider range means a stronger relationship.

SalesPort combines these four signals into a single 0–100 score per outlet, and recalculates it from the orders and visits captured in the field.

What should field teams do in each health band?

• Star: frequent, growing, wide range. Protect it: use for launches, display agreements and focus SKUs.

• Healthy: regular and stable. Grow range: introduce one or two new SKUs per cycle.

• At Risk: orders slowing or range shrinking. Have the rep visit within the week and find out why (competitor, credit, stock-out, service issue), and the ASM review in the weekly meeting.

• Critical: no recent orders or sharp decline. The manager makes a joint visit; check outstanding and complaints; decide whether to win back or move off the beat.

• New: recently onboarded, not enough history. Track the first and second repeat orders closely. They decide whether a new outlet sticks.

Want to know which of your outlets are at risk? Book a 30-minute walkthrough to see outlet health on your own beats.

Outlet 360: the context behind the score

A score tells you where to look; the outlet's full picture tells you what to do. The Outlet 360 view in the SalesPort Sales App shows a rep, at the outlet:

• order history and the products the outlet buys;

• visit history;

• the health score;

• receivables synced from SAP, so the rep knows about overdue payments before taking the next order.

Outlets are also grouped by status (active, dormant and expired) based on their last visit and last order, with filters across the rep's whole territory.

Reports that work with the health score

• Outlets, No Order: outlets with no order in a look-back period, with visit status and days since last order and last visit.

• Outlets, Stability: last order, order count and value, visits and status per outlet.

• Outlet Report: approval counts, GPS coverage, monthly potential, and a heatmap of outlets by location.

• PJP Compliance: planned versus visited, missed and off-plan visits, which often explains why outlets slip into At Risk.

Keep the data honest

A health score built on fake visits is worse than no score. Three controls make sure the inputs are real:

1. No phone orders. Retailer orders are accepted only during an open check-in at that outlet, inside a geofence (100 m by default), so every order is proof of a visit.

2. Clean outlet master. Duplicate checks on phone number, GPS and GSTIN when outlets are created stop the same shop from being counted twice. See the outlet master clean-up playbook.

3. Manager approval for new outlets. New outlets start as pending and only count towards targets once approved.

A weekly outlet health routine for ASMs

1. Monday: filter the territory to At Risk and Critical outlets and share the list with each rep.

2. Add priority visits for those outlets to the week's journey plan.

3. Midweek: check the Outlets, No Order report for anything newly slipping.

4. Friday: review which At Risk outlets ordered this week, and which need a joint visit.

5. Monthly: track how many outlets moved up or down a band, by rep and by beat.

Use outlet health with the rest of your DMS

Because SalesPort's Sales App and distributor management system share one database, the health score uses the same orders, visits and receivables that drive targets, schemes and replenishment. Book a walkthrough to see outlet health on your own beats. Related reading: beat plan management guide.