A Simplified USSD Experience for Tractor Bookings in Nigeria

Modern farms and agricultural operations work far differently than those a few decades ago, primarily because of advancements in technology, including sensors, devices, machines, and information technology.

Today’s agriculture routinely uses sophisticated technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. Agridrive needed a USSD application to offer these advanced agricultural technologies to businesses engaged in commercial farming so that they can be more profitable, efficient and environmentally friendly.

Agridrive Limited is bringing a completely new approach and solutions to Africa’s commercial agricultural practices. Apart from being a highly competitive business enterprise, they are motivated by the desire to nurture a novel generation of wealthy farmers and a food secure continent. In this respect, we were contacted to provide a simpler agribusiness and tractor booking application that will see farmers greatly improve their yields and profits.

While FreelyFormd is in pursuit of building world-class solutions and excellence, our focus is on ensuring that all our clients are satisfied by providing value for their time, money and consultation.

Agridrive Limited wanted to create business opportunities for farmers through developing quality products and services as well as new markets. But the challenge here was most of these farmers couldn’t access the website or mobile applications for use of these services. The company needed a cheaper but efficient application to reach out to everyone.

With tested capacity at over millions of sessions per month, our team knew that USSD was the solution to providing a robust communication gateway that supports surveys, competitions and consumer engagement, as well as real-time data and service requests.

Short for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD is decade-old technology, but in the world of mobile marketing, it is still a very powerful application tool for promotions, balance checks, conducting surveys, generating leads and much more. USSD Example: *185#. Mobile banking and airtime recharge facilities have made use of USSD since their inception to such an extent that many people do not even realise they are interacting with a USSD application.

Creating a USSD application was the perfect solution for a cheaper and faster means capable of providing a one-stop-shop solution for farmers of all categories, age and location from any place and time.

The finished USSD application was swift, faster and cheaper for most customers. It consisted of a customer’s location, service preference, land area, date of booking among others. The application also works on multiple telecom networks in various regions of Nigeria.

The goal of Agridrive was to provide a simplified experience for tractor bookings, we’ve been able to achieve that and add extra value by introducing a USSD application that allows users to make bookings on their analog or digital devices.

It’s our hope that more people use the Agridrive USSD application and provide feedback that’d help in designing a better product and overall experience.