Companies often don’t want to show customers “how the sausage is made,” but that wasn’t the case for John Deere, which made an effort to put human faces to products and receive feedback from past and potential customers at its recent Turf Care Quality First Factory Tour event.
In three waves, dozens of contractors from across the U.S. and Canada accompanied by dealers visited John Deere’s Turf Care factory in Fuquay-Varina, N.C., as the company wooed prospective buyers. The tour concluded with product presentations and an opportunity to test drive each piece of equipment.
The factory is the production site for all of John Deere’s commercial landscape equipment. It manufactures the company’s wide area mower, front mower, gas and diesel ZTrak mowers, trim and surround mower, fairway mower, greens mower, and the ProGator and 7-Iron decks. In March, the factory built its 500,000 unit. Production at the 335,000-square-foot factory began in 1997.
The event included a roundtable, which gave John Deere a chance to hear feedback from contractors. Each facet of the company—commercial mowing equipment/business development, commercial worksite products for design/build/installation, SiteOne Landscape Supply, parts and John Deere Financial—met with groups of about 10 contractors for 35 minutes each to find out why they might be hesitant to make the switch to Deere.
“If you’re only getting feedback at the dealer level, then there’s a level between, there’s a filter there,” said James Dutton, tactical marketing manager for John Deere. “When you hear the unaltered from the customer of what’s good and right and what’s wrong, what to do different, did this resonate with me, did this not resonate with me? It’s incredibly valuable to us. It’s all about what we can do to get better, and it’s that continuous improvement process. So for us, it’s a great way to introduce ourselves to the customer, but more importantly, it’s a great way for us to continuously listen and learn and try to improve.”
Many contractors aired concerns with part prices and availability. Others were weary of returning to John Deere products after bad customer service experiences with John Deere Landscapes, now SiteOne Landscape Supply. Employees said the rebranded company put the distribution responsibilities in the hands of the experts comfortable and experienced in that side of the business.
After airing their concerns and hearing from John Deere employees, many contractors said they felt a newfound sense of trust.
“I feel the relationship building with the company and seeing what’s behind the scenes with the product definitely helps ,” said Bill Conrad, owner of Sunrise Landscape in Tampa, Fla, when asked if the tour swayed him. “Also meeting peers from other parts of the country to learn unique operational things that have made them successful in their markets and getting side time with both the dealers to build that relationship is really invaluable.”
