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Photo credit: Heartland Ag


Q. DO YOU OFFER SERVICE PLANS FOR YOUR PRECISION FARMING CUSTOMERS?


BA – We are in the early stages of developing some support plans for our precision products. A call support plan would grant customers access to our call center, while start-up plans for new equip- ment would bring a product specialist out to the farm to start up the equipment (monitors, sensors, etc.) and make sure it’s working properly before it goes into the field. We also have integrated a smart phone app that allows us to video confer- ence with our customers. Often, it is difficult to provide an answer until we see the display screen. Having this kind of technology integrated into the service side of our business has helped to elimi- nate service calls and allows us to answer custom- er questions faster.


BI – We offer three support packages. Our first package covers phone and email support, as well as software updates. Our next package includes everything from the first package, plus two farm visits (to go through the display and make sure everything is set up correctly) and maps (to advise on what they can do different or what I can do to help). Our last package includes everything from the other two packages, plus full access to the John Deere support line. Farmers are slowly beginning to realize the value of having unlimited access to this information. Those not on a sup- port package are charged per call (no limit), and trips out to the farm are charged an hourly fee in addition to the service call fee. Several customers have found that having a support package is a lot simpler than getting a bill each month.


GI – We do not offer service packages at this time. Our team can resolve a lot of issues over the phone. If it takes more than 10 minutes to troubleshoot over the phone, then we usually need to go out to the farm and service the equipment. We’ve kicked around the idea of service con- tracts, however at this point we feel our customers should only pay for service when needed; this may


change in the future. Precision labor sales are no different than our Service Department labor sales. We need to maintain a certain level of recovery rate and bill in a timely manner.


HA – We spend approximately 55% of our time troubleshooting with customers over the phone. Since most problems can be solved this way, we spend a lot of time during the planting and harvesting seasons on the phone to keep them running. We don’t charge the customers for the phone call if they bought the product from us – it’s a free service offered to our customers. How- ever, if the equipment was purchased from some- one else, we charge for the phone calls. While we may not offer the cheapest product out there, it’s this level of service that sells our products.


LI – We offer our customers support packages that focus around machine start-ups. For example, when a customer signs up, we send a CTS or tech out to their farm (preferably pre-season) to help them get started. We put the machine in the field to make sure everything works and work with the customer to make sure they are comfortable and ready to go. These support packages are machine specific, so customers can pick and choose which piece(s) of equipment they need help with to make sure they get the most from that machine and the technology. While some customers are taking advantage of these packages, we are still doing a lot of support that is billed hourly. With many customers we are still in that transition of going from getting billed hourly to purchasing a support package and realizing the value it pro- vides the customer.


PI – We offer personalized support agreements that include phone calls and so forth. We sit down with our customers to discuss their needs and build a customized agreement to fit those needs. At the same time we like to handle the calls in our department so we can make a decision on whether or not a technician needs to go out to the farm. Customers who do not have a support plan are charged for each phone call.


16 | The Retailer Magazine | Mar/Apr


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