Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / As the integration of technology and data rises in production agriculture, John
Deere dealers in North America are in a constant quest to differentiate themselves and be
more than just an equipment provider. Customers with more technologically advanced
products are requiring more support from the dealerships. Each dealership has a unique
opportunity to provide unprecedented levels of support and each may do it in a slightly
different way. This creates a challenge for Deere & Company in providing resources and
support to those dealers in their endeavors.
This thesis was requested by Deere & Company (John Deere) to provide the
company with information on Dealer Customer Support Centers in North America. In order
to provide resources and tools for dealers to be successful, it is necessary to understand
what they are currently doing with customer support centers and the barriers to
implementing more. An online survey was sent out to the Integrated Solutions Manager at
every John Deere Dealer organization in North America. From that survey there were a
total of 127 responses.
The two most common forms of customer support systems that dealers are using
are having Integrated Solutions Staff members take calls directly from customers and
having someone within the dealership answer the phone and manually route the call to the
right person for support. Data also shows that some of the less common but more
technologically advanced methods of support have been implemented more in the past 12
months. Survey analysis indicates that only a small percentage of dealers have a true
centralized dedicated support center for customers. This subset of dealers is utilizing
several different methods to support customers. The two indicative methods are having a 1-
800 number for customers to utilize for support and having a dedicated staff to help
customers remotely.
Dealers are frequently using several types of tools and resources to help support
customers, the most frequently occurring ones include JDLink™ and Data Management
Services. Respondents indicated using many other tools to provide value to customers
including John Deere Remote Display Access, clinics and optimization sessions and many
others. Barriers to implementing more complex forms of customer support are numerous,
the biggest of which is the cost of implementation and lack of resources to support a more
sophisticated customer support system. With this information, John Deere is better
positioned to provide resources and support to our dealer channel facing these challenges.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:KSU/oai:krex.k-state.edu:2097/35236 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | Hauger, Jarah |
| Publisher | Kansas State University |
| Source Sets | K-State Research Exchange |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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