As the right-to-repair issue continues to simmer in legal circles, John Deere announced in August that it is increasing the tools and information it will make available to customers, allowing them to increase the number of repairs they can make to their equipment without calling on a technician from a brand dealership.
To that end, John Deere Operations Center PRO will replace the existing Customer Service Advisor online resource the company introduced a couple of years ago.
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It’s obvious at times that these policies, while often created with good intentions, were drafted by those with little or no experience in the agriculture industry.
“The launch of Operations Center PRO Service is a significant milestone that adds to John Deere’s existing tools, and it reaffirms our longstanding commitment to empowering customers to choose how they repair their equipment,” Denver Caldwell, vice-pesident of aftermarket and customer support, said in a press release.
“Importantly, our development of these tools reaffirms John Deere’s support of customer self-repair. We view continuously enhancing self-repair as consistent with our mission to ensure John Deere customers have the best machine ownership experience possible.”
The service won’t be limited to just owners of green equipment. With a John Deere equipment owner’s permission, independent repair shops can gain access to diagnostic and repair information.
Operations Center PRO already provides owners with operator’s manuals, advice and information on stored trouble codes, software updates as well as JDLink and warranty information.
However, Deere has now added more features to that service. It will offer digital repair content filtered by year and model number, which is designed to give users additional machine information and help troubleshoot, diagnose and repair their equipment. The brand says it’s designed to be intuitive and “deliver actionable support in real-time.”
Among those new features are more data on diagnostic trouble codes, serial number specific content including manuals, software reprogramming, interactive diagnostic tests and calibrations.
The extra service will come at a price, though. Access will cost US$195 per machine.
