How Smoker's Zone ditched the atlas, got organized, and started selling more.
When one of your reps is still using a paper atlas to plan routes, it's time for a better tool. Here's how Smoker's Zone found it in Badger Maps.
About Smoker's Zone
Smoker's Zone is a premium cigar manufacturer and distributor based in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Family-owned and operated since 2016, the company manufactures its own cigars and brokers for other tobacco producers, distributing a portfolio of high-end products including cigars, CBD, hookah, and vape products to cigar shops, gas stations, and convenience stores across their territory.
With a lean field team of three outside sales reps and one inside salesperson, Smoker's Zone runs a tight operation. Sahil Ambani — CEO, President, and de facto head of sales — oversees everything from product development and manufacturing to the technology his reps use in the field. Getting the team organized and productive isn't just a priority. It's a personal one.
The challenge
Before Badger Maps, Smoker's Zone's reps were planning their routes the hard way — researching customer locations manually, mapping them out in Google, and figuring out the best order to visit them on their own. One veteran rep was still using a physical atlas.
The result was wasted planning time every day, confusion over territory boundaries, inconsistent follow-ups, and customer relationships that suffered when details fell through the cracks. Sahil knew his team was capable of more. They just didn't have the right tools to get there.
“We really didn't have a tool to work with and Badger seemed like a good option. It had all the basics we were looking for. The Badger Maps team was responsive, and that was key for us — responsiveness.”
Sahil Ambani, President and CEO, Smoker's Zone
How they found Badger Maps
The introduction came from an unlikely source — a new sales rep who had used Badger Maps at a previous company and brought it with him when he joined Smoker's Zone. Sahil explored it himself, liked what he saw immediately, and got the whole team onboarded. Even the rep who had been working from an atlas made the switch without complaint.
Badger's customer support team made the transition seamless, walking every rep through the tool individually and making sure no one was left behind.
How Badger Maps helped
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Planning time cut every single day
The most immediate change was in how reps started their day. Route planning that had previously taken significant time was reduced to minutes. Badger built optimized routes automatically, factoring in which customers needed to be seen and in what order, so reps spent less time planning and more time in front of customers.
“Badger's route planning is definitely a valuable tool for customizing routes and making sure there's time allocated for meetings. Badger helps keep us organized and on track.”
Check-ins after every meeting gave reps a running log of every customer interaction: who they saw, what was discussed, what needed to happen next. Instead of relying on memory at the end of a long day, reps had detailed notes in the app that kept them on top of every follow-up and every commitment. Customer relationships improved, because nothing slipped through the cracks.
For Sahil, Badger Maps gave him something he hadn't had before: a clear view of what his team was doing week to week. Check-in activity made it easy to track which accounts were being visited, how often, and what was happening in each meeting. For a CEO managing a small team across a wide territory, that visibility made it significantly easier to coach, redirect, and keep the whole operation moving forward.
“With Badger, we're more organized and getting more sales. The reps are better about follow-ups and are able to look at their notes and remember. At the end of the day, we're making more sales and keeping the customers happy.”
