During a Farm Progress Show press conference aimed at the foreign press, AGCO leadership stressed its focus on growing the Fendt brand in North America.
Stefan Caspari, senior vice president of customer success and North American ag, said that since AGCO introduced Fendt in North America 5 years ago, the company has invested $85 million in its dealer network in the region.
He says today Fendt dealers cover about 80% of large ag in North America. There are 75 dealer groups with 275 locations, and the network is growing, he says.
“But the story doesn't end here and there's actually a different story to that. We don't believe that we will win with brick and mortar. Brick and mortar is a high investment for our dealers and it still requires the farmer to come to the dealership. In North America, we actually address it in a different way. See the different map here with many more dots on it.”
“These are all parts locations and service trucks that we want our dealers to have in order to serve the area and serve the farmers. In fact, these dots are three times more than the dots on the previous page. That means there are three times more touch points that you as a fend farmer, as a fend customer have in order to get support from your machine. We require every dealer from us to invest into on-farm capabilities, which is basically service trucks and these parts drop boxes. So service trucks, as some of you have seen yesterday at Hagnet Farms, big service trucks, they have a crane, they have all the equipment that you need in order to service or repair a machine. It's basically a dealership on wheels. And these kinds of dealers bring that service to the farm.”
AGCO introduced the Farmer Core initiative, which is focused on delivering “an exceptional next generation farmer and dealer experience built on 3 pillars — the on-farm mindset, smart network coverage and digital customer engagement.”
It is an end-to-end distribution model designed to meet the changing needs of farmers around the world, bringing the dealer experience directly to the farm. The on-farm model positions dealers to meet their customers' needs at every stage of the ownership journey.
AGCO uses a net promoter score to measure customer satisfaction, and Caspari says dealers applying Farmer Core have a 4.5 higher net promoter score of customer satisfaction that results in better market share. Dealers that are applying Farmer Core have a 1.5% better market share in their areas than dealers who aren’t applying to that level yet.
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