Along with expanded self-care resources, John Deere will offer customers and independent repair shops in the US the ability to purchase Customer Service ADVISOR directly through JohnDeereStore.com.
By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com
Deere & Co. (ie John Deere), has announced it will enhance pre-existing diagnostic tools and expand availability to allow customers to fix their equipment faster and with minimal downtime.
The solutions include a mobile device interface, and software updates that customers can download themselves to embedded controllers on select John Deere equipment with 4G connections.
This development appears to come in response to complaint filed with the US Federal Trade Commission on March 3, 2022, arguing that Deere & Co. is preventing farmers from repairing their own tractors and combines.
This complaint group consists of 200,000 farmers et al, from: the (US) National Farmers Union, Iowa Farmers Union, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin farmers unions, Farm Action, Illinois Public Interest Research Group, Digital Right to Repair Coalition, and iFIXIT.
The complaint group stated that Deere & Co. has retained strict control over the proprietary software needed to diagnose and repair equipment and will only allow full access to its authorized technicians. The complaint alleges that when a John Deere tractor, for example, suffers from an issue, the machine shuts itself down until the Deere & Co. software reactivates it.
Because Deere & Co. maintains strict control over the proprietary software, the complaint group said that reactivity can take many days for the repair to be enacted, which is both time and money lost for the growers in-season who need the equipment running in the fields.
With the March 21, 2022 news of John Deere willing to address those concerns, Luke Gakstatter, senior VP Aftermarket & Customer Support for Deer & Co. said: “John Deere is continuously innovating, developing and bringing to market new technologies and solutions that enable our customers to be more productive, efficient and sustainable. These enhanced self-repair solutions follow that same guiding approach.”
He continued: “Customers with connectivity already receive proactive maintenance through over-the-air software updates and diagnostic code information available to their smart phone.
“The next step for us to digitize and enhance the repairability experience is to enable customers themselves to remotely download secure software updates to controllers.”
Along with this announcement, John Deere said that as of May 2022, it will also expand its services by allowing customers and independent repair shops in the US the ability to purchase Customer Service ADVISOR directly through JohnDeereStore.com.
“We recognize our customers’ desire for more autonomy in managing their equipment,” said Gakstatter. “Quality and uptime are essential to their operations. That’s why we’re expanding the point-of-sale options for Customer Service ADVISOR to include the John Deere Store website, which will give our customers and independent repair shops direct access to additional self-repair tools.”