Customer Relationship Management

AgFirst offers Microsoft CRM, an industry leading sales force management tool. CRM is used by Associations to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, manage the loan/deal opportunity pipeline, track interactions with customers (phone calls, visits, emails, tasks, etc.), and provide reports and analytics to lenders. The AgFirst-hosted CRM platform offers several compelling advantages in the areas of flexibility, agility, integration, e-mail marketing and mobile solutions.

Flexibility and Agility

Each Association has its own dedicated instance which enables Association specific customizations. These customizations are typically promoted to production every two weeks. Areas where Associations can customize the product include:

Loan servicing plans.
Processes to track insurance programs (crop, rain/hail).
Reports (examples include Sales Pipeline by Branch/Loan Officer, Loans Past Due, Loans Maturing, Sales Calls by Loan Officer, etc.).
Dashboards (examples include Opportunities Opened the Last 30 Days, Won Opportunities the Last 30 Days, Open Opportunities, etc.).
Processes for managing opportunities.

Integration

CRM is integrated with the loan origination system and the Enterprise Data Warehouse. This allows Associations to see a full customer profile that includes opportunities, loan applications being processed and active loans. This integration enables powerful workflow functionality that can alert lenders of loan servicing actions, such as a customer account becoming past due or when a loan is maturing.

Email Marketing

AgFirst provides the tools to create professionally designed email marketing campaigns from within CRM. The email marketing tool can track and report on undelivered emails and also when recipients click on links embedded within the emails. Examples of how Associations use email marketing campaigns include announcing customer appreciation events, conducting photo contests and sending holiday e-cards and newsletters.

Mobile Solutions

The CRM platform can be extended with advanced mobile capabilities. Using tablets or smartphones, lenders in the field will have access to sales data at their fingertips. Examples of how this is being used today include:

Smartphone apps for loan officers that allow them to quickly get information on customers and to update their opportunity pipeline.
Using mapping to display customer lists. For example, the mobile tools can display a map showing the locations of all active prospects. The following is an example of how one Association has used the mapping technology to show all active contacts for a loan officer. The pins are colored coded as follows: Green = existing customer, Blue = Prospective Customer (an open opportunity or loan application in process), Yellow = Suspect (no relationship yet), Red = Third Parties (Realtors, appraisers, etc.).