I'm not sure how to begin this so guess I'll dive in. This is being brought up here because of Deere's decision to move more of the front line of customer support to the dealer level. I can see their side of it--If the dealer is going to sell the product said dealer should be able to service it. I have no idea how many calls stellar support takes on a given day but am sure that it is a phenomenal number "in season". I also have no idea what it costs to operate the call center but have a pretty good idea that it also is a phenomenal number. I would like to know how many staff are available to answer phones at any given time.
Now with all that said I wonder why the decision was made to push this down to the dealer level. I mean hardware prices could have been increased, annual support fees could have been increased, or some combination of the two. It would seem to me that Deere would want consistency in the support "experience" and that would be harder to achieve by turning it over to the dealers.
This brings up another question that I have--are the early (or relatively so) adopters getting a better deal than the later adopters? I mean the folks that have been into precision for several years already have gotten a "free ride" support wise as there was no fees in the beginning. Then later it was included in the purchase of new equipment. So if they spread out their purchases they shouldn't have had to pay a separate fee for support. But on the other hand the earlier adopters have helped to work out a lot of bugs so maybe they should get a better deal. With all the new stuff in the pipeline is this just the tip of the iceberg? Is the iron dealer going the route of the healthcare industry? From primary care to specialist?
I am not wanting to start a bash but just some discussion about where you all see customer support for precision products heading. With all the grief on this board by Trimble users regarding their support scheme I just wondered why Deere has made the decision they have. And do you think that it will make a difference in sales of precision products? Will this cause greenstar users to shop around other brands? I hope this discussion will include users of all brands. Thanks for reading.