Project Agrifac

Agrifac, a company specialized in the design and production of the best sprayers and beet harvesters, has now reached customers globally and is one of the most successful companies within the Excel group, to which it belongs. Agrifac has been using Merkato for a year.

Quootz was curious about their story behind choosing Merkato and their experiences so far, and visited Agrifac in Steenwijk. We spoke with Frank-Jan Evers, plant manager at Agrifac, and Roelof van ‘t Ende, product manager responsible for the implementation of the configurator. They are two peas in a pod when talking about the software.

“The user-friendliness and simple implementation were decisive factors for us.”

“We acquired Merkato because within our sprayers many combinations are possible for the setup, but not all combinations are possible in reality. We often received incorrect orders with incompatible combinations and were looking for the solution.

Merkato ensures that only correct orders come out of the configurator because we have entered all product knowledge into the system,” explains Frank-Jan.

“Almost a year ago, we started our journey with Quootz. Through word-of-mouth, we came into contact with Bas Könst. After earlier research with competitors, it became clear that we should go for Quootz. Setting up Merkato is much easier and it is a lot cheaper than the competitors. ‘It’s not only the software that is cheaper, but definitely also the implementation period that is attached to it. With Quootz, you spend about a week on training, while this can take weeks with their competitors. The user-friendliness and simple implementation were decisive for us.”

“We now have a link between Merkato and Exact and thus no more incorrect orders. Our goal, which has arisen thanks to Merkato, is to have all our employees working with the configurator within six months and to have all orders made online. When the Condor sprayer runs well via the configurator, we will process our other machines within Merkato as well.”

“Once we started working with Merkato, it turned out to be easier than expected. I had about 2 days of training and regular email or phone contact with Bas and Christiaan. The software is accessible, which is great. The software is thus reachable for everyone. When Bas and Christiaan were not readily available, they would email me, and I could send my question via email. I always received a neat email back within 24 hours,” says Roelof. “When we put the Condor into Merkato, it went quite smoothly; the product architecture was good only then did we become aware of all the dependencies between the variants, accessories, and options to choose from. Getting this visibility took relatively a lot of time and also made us realize that a configurator was now a necessity to flawlessly assemble a machine.”

“They email themselves too. If they see little activity on the server, they ask why,” says Frank-Jan. “’Hurry up with that business and if you are stuck with something, we will come help you,’ they have communicated to us. Bas and Christiaan are straightforward and want serious handling with Merkato. They also review the implementation in Merkato themselves and when they see errors or points for improvement, they let you know right away.

They are not just busy selling that business, but they also want to make something of it. That is important, and fun.”

“The strengths of Quootz are the personal attention, the proactive attitude, and the small setup of the company,” tell Frank-Jan and Roelof. “As long as we can stay in contact with the director, we find that positive. The strong points of Merkato are its user-friendliness, accessibility, and price, which achieves a lot! Quootz must maintain their accessibility. That is a great advantage and therefore Merkato sells so well and better than their competitors.”

“Therefore, we heartily recommend Merkato from Quootz for other companies,” adds Frank-Jan.