HARLAN, Iowa — HTS Ag will strengthen their customer connection with their recent partnership with AgriSync, a remote support mobile app. With the new partnership, AgriSync will be added to HTS Ag’s current service plans to enhance customer service by allowing real time communication between farmers and technicians.
HTS Ag opened their doors in 1985 as a farm accounting software company. The business quickly grew into a much larger computer sales company, and eventually advanced into one of the innovative leaders within the agricultural technology industry. As the industry evolved, company leaders began to see the value in services and service contracts from the computer, information technology (IT) side of the business.
“Our experience in IT really laid the groundwork and helped mold the services component within our business,” says Adam Gittins, General Manager at HTS Ag. “We realized if you’re good at making the equipment work, farmers like buying it from you. And that really helped us drive sales because customers knew they could count on us to keep their equipment up and running.”
HTS Ag began their service plans in 2007. Once the plans were in motion, technicians quickly learned they could accomplish two very critical things. They could check customer’s displays and make sure the equipment was ready to go to the field, and they had the opportunity to give customers a quick training course since customers likely hadn’t looked at the display in 9 or 10 months.
“We saw the opportunity to do something to help our customers keep running. We’ve always had the “customer first” mentality to build our business around service,” says Gittins.
The service plans proved to be an instant success, but technicians realized they couldn’t meet the demand and make the amount of service calls needed within a given day.
“The drive time absolutely kills us when we drive to every person’s farm to help them get going and fix any problem they may have,” Gittins says. “Time is critical and we can’t be everywhere at once.That’s when we took a look at AgriSync. You could have one technician helping several people in a short amount of time.”
HTS Ag evaluated their work within their IT structure and noted what worked well within the market segment. They realized a dashboard for remote support is what made the system a success.
AgriSync is the first remote support app for agriculture. It enables live video calling, which will assist technicians in providing better service to their farmer customers when breakdowns occur.
The live video technology allows the advisor to see exactly what the farmer sees to help bring speed to resolution. Within the app, advisors can track their service time through a ticketing system and obtain instant feedback from customers about the quality of service they received.
HTS Ag ran a successful pilot program with AgriSync with a few customers this fall and will be including the offering within all service plans in 2017.
“Any of our customers that have a service plan with us moving forward will receive service using AgriSync,” says Gittins. “It’s one more way to enhance our ability to service the customer and provide them the most timely and efficient service that we can figure out how to do.”
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