I enjoy teaching CE classes at conventions. It helps me feel like I’m giving a service to the industry that might be beneficial.
One of the things that I often relay is that you need to give your customers information that will help them run their business and services that will help their workflow.
One of the things that I’ve seen a lot of interest in lately is sending growers pre and post notifications of the job being done. We added this feature a couple of years ago to our software per a request. The more people learn about it, the more their growers love it. You can either email or text the date you plan on spraying and the day(s) that you applied it. This keeps a log in our system, so you’ll know when you sent an email or text to the grower.
I had a consultant call me one weekend and said he wished he could get all of his applicators to do this. He is being copied on the notifications of his customers after they have been applied. This helps him help the grower. Knowing when they can get back in the field makes a huge difference.
You can do other things, such as reporting all the jobs for the grower’s records. We also have a feature that lets the grower login and create their maps and jobs. With many younger farmers getting on board, they love this feature. The communication is instant, and there’s no miscommunication. I’ve seen all kinds of workflows, but I hear growers having to take a map and then rebuild it in your system seems pretty clunky.
There are so many different workflows in our industry. I love to help make this more efficient. As one operation told me, “This is our lives, and every click makes a difference.”
Something I like to do for our customers (and potential) is having an annual seminar. We’ve had two successful seminars in Jonesboro, and I realized how important it is for them to know all of the program’s features. Education is so important. Two customers found out they could’ve saved a lot of time if they had only known about a few reports. We had a good time eating a great meal, having raffle giveaways, and having great fellowship.
Y’all fly safe!
