Another content from the series “From the door to the inside”, focusing on sales processes in the field in agribusiness. This article discusses how a well-structured operation for the agronomist (or field representative) increases data quality, improves business decisions, and supports relationship strategies with rural producers.
This content is aimed at agricultural cooperatives, sugar-energy mills, input manufacturers and resellers, seed producers, and companies with field teams.
The agronomist's role as the main link with the producer
In many agro-operations, the agronomist focuses on the relationship and the history of the visits. This context creates a critical management point when the recording of interactions depends on individual notes, local spreadsheets, or operational memory. In practice, the company sees only a fraction of what happens in the property.
A recurring scenario includes limited farm registration, with address and delivery list. Information such as the owner's profile, links with family groups, productive area per plot, planting potential and crop history no longer enter the corporate radar.
What does your company gain when field data becomes assets
When visits, recommendations, orders, and field events enter a sales force CRM adapted to agriculture, previously unfeasible analyses and actions become executable with operational security.
Examples of strategies that are more consistent with well-collected field data:
- Producer or member loyalty analysis, using purchase history, service, and adherence to technical recommendations;
- Segmented campaigns, with supply by crop, phenological moment, history of problems and area profile, reducing waste of money and an irrelevant approach;
- Test reports and demonstration areas, with traceability of what was applied, where it was applied and what result was observed, allowing structured sharing with the producer.
These points increase business forecasting capacity, reduce dependence on informal information, and increase governance over the operation.
What does a sales force CRM need to have to work in agriculture
Adoption depends on real use in the agronomist's daily life. The tool needs to reflect the industry's field routine and trading formats.
Features that tend to be decisive:
- Digital field notebook, to record visits, activities, recommendations, occurrences, and next steps by property;
- Orders compatible with the agro operation, including multi-currency and barter/barter flows where applicable;
- Agronomic recipe book registration, especially in defensive sales, organized by producer and property;
- 360º view of the producer, connecting purchase history, interactions, pending issues and relationship evolution;
- Field mapping, with area, history of crops, previous crops and productive potential, supporting planning and recommendation;
- Mobile application with field routine support, including streamlined registration, simple navigation, and conditions suitable for use outside the office.
How to increase agronomist adherence when the profile is more “analog”
The adoption barrier usually appears when the team understands registration as a bureaucracy. Deployment must reduce friction and generate perceived operational gain.
Practical actions that increase usage:
- Registration and visit flows with few mandatory fields at the first contact, expanding the details progressively;
- Visit templates and checklists by culture, reducing repetitive typing;
- Monitoring routine with usage indicators by region and by consultant, connecting registration to operational goals;
- Training based on real field scenarios, with examples of how history helps with the next visit and the closing of the order.
Indicators to measure the impact of the sales force in the structured field
To evaluate the result, the indicators need to connect the use of CRM to business performance and pipeline quality.
Metrics that usually work well:
- Visitor coverage by portfolio, region and period;
- Visit registration fee (visits made vs. registered visits);
- Quality of registration (percentage of producers with complete minimum data and mapped fields);
- Cycle time between visit, recommendation and request;
- Mix evolution and average ticket by producer profile and by culture;
- Accuracy of the forecast, crossing the field pipeline with the billing carried out;
- Retention and share of wallet by producer/member when there is sufficient historical data.
Field sales force: conclusion and next step
A well-structured field sales force transforms visitor information into a basis for decision, relationship, and predictability. The operation now depends less on individual records and gains consistency in commercial execution.
To understand how a sales force CRM can be configured for the reality of your field team, contact Plusoft and schedule a conversation.
