GreenPoint Ag's Halls, Tenn. Location Receives 2023 Business Innovation Award

At GreenPoint Ag, the team has a singular direction. It looks forward in how to modernize operations, reduce internal pain points and enhance customer experiences. 

Formed in September 2020, GreenPoint Ag has more than 100 locations in 10 states. The transformation from traditional manual processes to efficient digitization is exhibited at its Halls, Tennessee, location, which led to it being named the 2023 Business Innovation Award winner, sponsored by Ever.Ag.

GreenPoint’s management team focused on three projects: introducing a customer portal and customer relationship software, digitizing marketing efforts and deploying mobile tools for its retail teams. 

“At the center of our work is the customer,” says Brandon Justice, GreenPoint Ag’s manager of customer experience and e-commerce. “In a world where it’s increasingly digital, we have to make sure that we aren’t an outlier, and we can meet them where they are.”

The first step was to invest in its data and system of record. For GreenPoint Ag, that is the ERP. 

“You can’t get to your goal five years down the road with bad data. You have to start with clean data,” Justice says. “When we update our records or change our systems, it’s not about getting by day to day. You have to keep the long-term goal in focus.”

Beta Testing in the Field
In rolling out the digital initiatives, two best practices paid off. First, seeking input and feedback brought ideas into reality and ensured valuable tools were prioritized. 

“The team at Halls always had an open mind and helped us quickly find out what works,” Justice says. “One of our regional directors asked we make every task take one less step. It required us to closely work with the people in the field to find where we could make those efficiencies happen.” 

Second, change champions served as internal advocates for the transformation and its benefits. This facilitated a smoother transition.

Increased Efficiency and Productivity
All orders are now digitized, which has improved  product delivery and warehouse inventory accuracy. 

“Eliminating hand tickets means we reduce errors, and we can maximize our real-time inventory,” says Evan Rose, who worked for two years as location manager and sales agronomist and recently moved into a wholesale role for GreenPoint Ag. “We have kept our carrying costs down while ensuring we have what we need on hand in a timely manner to keep farmers rolling.” 

Integrating digital tools and automation has streamlined operations and enhanced efficiency. 

“We can move tasks that were once manual and time-consuming toward automation, freeing up our teams to focus on more strategic and value-added activities. Digital systems facilitate real-time data sharing and collaboration among teams, even in remote or distributed work settings,” Justice says. 

As a result, GreenPoint meets the customer where they are and when they need products and services. This proximity to the customer has reduced operational costs, optimized resource allocation and led to improved profitability and competitiveness.

Enhanced Customer Experience
For the past year, GreenPoint Ag has been focused on launching a customer portal. The portal’s benefits are experienced both internally and externally. 

Equipping field representatives and location support teams with customer details and insights from their mobile devices or tablets in real time drastically improves operational efficiency and customer service.

Customers can see their account activity, view statements and balances, browse products, request quotes, purchase products online and explore third-party financing options via the mobile app. Data from the portal connect to the CRM and ERP. 

The customer portal has connected GreenPoint’s AccuField precision ag program with agronomic advice as well as product ordering and placement. 

“The No. 1 thing farmers come to GreenPoint Ag for is our services,” Rose says. “All of our data is combined into one spot where we can take whatever prescription we’re wanting to do, combine that with product recommendations, pull them into one spot and give the farmer a physical copy or a digital file.” 

Rose says it’s one more way GreenPoint Ag can demonstrate value — simplifying the entire process. 

“I think this has enabled us to gain the confidence of the grower in order to increase business with them,” Rose says. 

Data-Driven Decision-Making
“Our digital transformation has pushed us to think big but operate in a locally focused mindset for our customers,” Justice says. 

Having accurate information on which to base the new approach was the team’s first of many milestones. Migrating billing and inventory to be completely digital was next. Now, the team is working on analyzing overall usage of the tools, including logins into the grower portal.

“Our goal is to have 80% of customer adoption by the fall of 2026,” Justice says. “It’s one thing to roll a product out to a customer but to go out and work with the customer and show them how that fits in to the existing relationship, that’s the win. The ideal customer experience runs parallel to how they want to do business with us.” 

Continuous improvement is the fuel for GreenPoint Ag and each of the teams at its locations. 

“There are a lot of moving pieces, but it’s important all of those pieces are moving in the same direction–forward,” Justice says. “The Halls, Tennessee, location deserves the Business Innovation Award because they’ve embraced our digital progress, and they supported it out of the gate. Being able to work with a location that is so willing to work toward something and to do it all because of their customer is award-worthy.”