Case Study: A Major Gasoline Retailer

Maritz Helps Gasoline Retailer Deliver A Consistent, High-Quality Customer Experience

Maritz Helps Gasoline Retailer Deliver A Consistent, High-Quality Customer Experience

Situation
Creating consistent, high-quality retail gas station experiences is a challenge, especially when a brand spans 13,000 retail locations. Adding to the challenge is the fact that most of the client’s retail service stations are run by wholesalers and independent retailers, many of whom also run stations for competing brands. The client believed that improving the quality of the customer experience would protect their brand and positively impact their bottom line.

Having defined a set of standards, the company needed to identify the gaps in performance for each location. Next they wanted to ensure that employees received tailored feedback so they could make the necessary changes. They also needed to motivate service station personnel to want to make the desired changes.

Solution
Maritz Research, Maritz Learning, and Maritz Motivation collaborated with the client to design an end-to-end solution. The program is built around the idea of a customer value proposition, or CVP. The CVP details actions that service station personnel should take - and the conditions that must exist for the experience to meet company standards.

To get a picture of the actual customer experience, Maritz Research conducts mystery shops for 13,000 branded stations, with each station being shopped a minimum of three times per year. Store managers and owners get an email once their store has been shopped. This email includes a link to a reporting portal where they can see the details about their evaluation, including photos of the store location that were taken during the mystery shop.

Maritz Learning works with the client and Maritz Research to create training modules that align with CVP service standards. The training modules are available on a website that Maritz created for the client. The website includes the “CVP Certification Program” to enable all retail employees and managers, as well as Maritz Research “mystery shoppers” to assess performance in each location with an eye toward consistency. If a store fails to achieve a passing grade on one or more of the standards, managers and owners can coach their employees and can send them back to the training website for reinforcement. Training for site staff includes product and promotions as well as the CVP standards.

When employees complete the training modules, they receive a reward card, provided through Maritz Motivation. This is one of several forms of incentives that Maritz provides to motivate the employees and managers. At the store level, employees are rewarded according to how they are rated on the items in the CVP that they can control (e.g. greeting, clean restrooms). When they participate in training, they are also entered into an awards sweepstakes. The top 70 wholesalers/retailers receive a grand travel award based on their mystery shop scores as well as their site staff’s participation in training.

Results

• The client has seen a direct correlation between the training programs and increased customer satisfaction scores.
• Stations with higher CVP scores are also delivering significantly higher gasoline sales.
• On average, trip-winners have increased their gas volume five percent more than non-winners

Pull-out
“Sites with good customer satisfaction scores do attract more brand loyalty,” says Bruce Smart, the Maritz national account director who handles the account.  “They also show higher gasoline sales volumes.”

^{Rewards Cards are issued in connection wtih a loyalty, award, or promotional program}