Customer Experience > 'Clicks and Mortar': What Nutrien Misses About Digital Enablement

Index:

1. Overview

2. Defining Customer Experience

3. Digital Portals

4. Mediums are Ancillary

5. Learning from Banking and Airlines

6. Where is Nutrien starting?

7. Program Management

8. Advances to the Customer Portal: What can they look like and Where is the Focus in the Future?

9. The Real Value of a Digital Enablement Not Mentioned by Nutrien

10. Final Thoughts

Overview

The announcement from Nutrien saying The Future Is A ‘Clicks and Mortar Business’ feels like déjà vu, taking me back to themes I was writing about in 2020 — customer experience in ag retail.

There are two themes that come to mind from reading the article:

1. Front End Customer Experience

2. Value of a Digitally Enabled Team

Front End Customer Experience

First, let’s define customer experience.

When I say “customer experience,” I am talking about the sum of all interactions a customer has with the business — critically, how those interactions make the customer feel.

It’s broader than customer service or the transaction. For example, service is one touchpoint (eg: resolving an issue), whereas experience covers the entire journey: discovering the company, evaluating options, purchasing, using the product or service, and post-purchase engagement.

Key elements throughout the customer journey include:

• Ease of interaction — how simple and frictionless it is for a customer to get what they want at every point of engagement/need.

• Consistency — whether the experience is reliable across channels (in-person, online, mobile etc).

• Responsiveness — speed and quality of communication.

• Personalization — tailoring offers, messages, or support to the customer’s context.

• Emotional impact — the sense of trust, confidence, or frustration the customer walks away with.

Thinking about the customer experience means more than designing systems, workflows, and technologies — it is about enabling the culture and staff capabilities to deliver so that a customer’s relationship with the company is seamless, efficient, and positive enough that it builds relationships and loyalty.

Digital enablement is about supporting that customer experience in an ancillary way.

Digital Portals

On one hand, it’s encouraging that Nutrien is highlighting the need for a more integrated and seamless connection between customers and staff. Acknowledging the importance of digital tools is necessary in today’s market.

However, what was leading in 2020 is table stakes today.

For example, companies like AgVend have been built on delivering retails a way to offer better experiences for customers and staff. AgVend CEO Alexander Reichert recently shared with me that they have 35% of North American ag retail on their system, which means ~35% of North American retailers already have an integrated customer experience, which means that Nutrien isn’t leading, they are actually admitting they are playing catchup.

Mediums are Ancillary

Have you ever heard an ag retail say they are “cable and mortar” because they invested in a phone line?

I doubt it.

A phone line was a new medium through which an entity could connect with and communicate with a customer, improving the experience for the customer and the staff.

That’s what digital systems and customer portals enable, too.

Just like a fax machine machine enabling fax messages, cell phones enabling text messages, the internet enabling e-mail and now online infrastructure enabling connection through a digital hub or portal. These are all tools that enable ancillary customer engagement.

Not getting a phone line in the ‘50’s is the equivalent of not having an online system for staff and customers to engage.

Learning from Banking and Airlines

If your bank tried to differentiate itself by saying “we have an online banking experience and an app,” you’d probably say “so does everyone else.”

Why is ag retail any different?

In numerous articles in 2020 and 2021, including one where I talked about the need to focus on the “ambient” nature of customer experience, I emphasized that digital portals and hubs are not about transacting — they are about communication, freeing up time for the customer and staff and improving the entire relationship experience, not just the transaction itself.

I emphasized things like: Can the farmer see what orders were last year? Can they pay an invoice? Can they sign a fertilizer contract? Can they track program progress? Can they access financing? Can they see their scouting reports from their sales agronomist? These are the important aspects that empower farmers to manage their time and their business.

That’s all table stakes in the airline industry, too — purchasing your ticket online is useful, but augmenting the flying experience with the integration of digital systems supporting how you check-in, receive luggage updates, boarding start alerts, gate change alerts etc. all deliver a better experience throughout more than just the actual purchase. The digital tools act as a coordinating layer to augment your experience and what you are capable of.

What is encouraging from Nutrien, is they have stopped emphasizing dollars through the portal a KPI, something I long said was irrelevant (because transactions are not the important aspect). Nutrien stopped reporting dollars through their initial portal in 2023 and with the relaunch is beginning to frame things through an experience lens, including looking at:

• Does this improve outcomes for customers?

• Do customers save time and effort?

• Is it more convenient?

• Does it strengthen the connection between customers, Nutrien, and the people who represent the company?

In summary, it is about the customer experience.

Where is Nutrien starting?

Nutrien states that they will start with the following offers for their customers via the Hub:

• Online payments

• View invoices, purchase history, and account details

• Manage account profile and notification preferences, including paperless statements

• Explore financing offers

• Monitor local and field-level agronomically relevant weather conditions, and view shared agronomic crop plans

All consistent with what is available in the market.

What was a notable was their statement on programs:

There are a host of companies working on retail program creation, management and calculation — most of which focus on delivering the capability directly to the manufacturer themselves (eg: AG DATA), and many others focused on empower the retailer teams in procurement or distribution to better understand how they are positioned (eg: AgVend, Myriad).

Nutrien is the first to say (to my knowledge) they are going to make it transparent for farmers to be able to assess programs available:

Given the vertical integration of Nutrien, along with other programs they have (eg: sustainability, financing), it can make the system more gamified which could be an advantage for increasing farmer engagement, along with agronomist/farmer collaboration.

For more on the AgVend Launches Program Management for Ag Retailers

Advances to the Customer Portal: What can they look like and Where is the Focus in the Future?

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