Learning About Customer Service from a Gas Station

I’m a bit of gas station food & drink aficionado.

I’m pretty sure it all started with the “Kangaroo” station in Athens that always had a two hot dog and jumbo fountain drink deal for $1.99. It was staple in my diet for most of my years there.

Once I moved back to my hometown of Valdosta, GA, I was very disappointed in the gas station selection. No Circle K, no RaceTrac. We were suffering.

Then came Murphy Express. I had never heard of the brand before, but they were a bright light in a town desperate for some good gas stations. The service was excellent, stores clean, the employees were “almost” Chick-fil-A caliber and the Icees and fountain Diet Mountain Dew were priced just right. That is saying a lot for a gas station!

Over the years I have become more and more impressed with their operation and I’ve always wanted to learn more about the company and how they put out such an excellent experience in a very tough industry.

Turns out Murphy USA is a $3.2 billion company with some massive growth plans. From my experience I think they will succeed. Why?

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They appear to be doing a great job keeping their customers and employees happy and engaged.

Let’s look at how they do it.

This all started when I was scanning a business receipt from Murphy and noticed the rather audacious invite to participate in their customer survey for a chance to win $100 in free gas. Murphy doesn’t just put a little info about their survey at the bottom of their receipts, they aim to make sure you take that survey!

Why is Murphy putting so much effort into getting customer feedback? Why are they willing to pay for their customers opinions? 3 reasons:

 

  1. Management can’t be everywhere. Yes, management can visit the stores and should. Store visits help staff morale, but visiting stores pretty much stinks as an evaluation tool. The store manager and staff will certainly hear through the company grapevine that you are coming and the store will be cleaner than it has been in months!Management must have a direct line of communication with their customers. You’ll never get the full story through your staff or even store visits.
  1. Direct Customer Feedback is Gold! It is like knowing the answers to the test before you take it! Once you know what customers are looking for and what is missing now, all you have to do is cost effectively implement the solution.
  2. It is a Bargain – Think of the management time saved and the value created by getting this direct feedback. Think of the value created by engaging your customers in making your business better. It is priceless & certainly worth more than $100 in free gas they are giving away.

Chick-fil-a is another great example of paying for customer feedback. I am a raving fan of Chick-fil-a, but I probably would never take the time to fill out a survey if they didn’t give me a free chicken sandwich to do it. Your customers are busy and you need to give them a “thank you” gift for taking the time to give you their opinion.

What else can we learn from Murphy’s customer feedback process?

  1.  Ask the right questions. The question below is a variant on the Net Promoter Score. A great key metric for your organization to track.46percent
  2. Make it Simple – Step by step instructions made it easy for me to follow the process.CSS
  3. Be Legitimate – If you are going to give something away, prove that you are actually giving stuff away. Murphy does a great job by posting the winners’ names on their survey site.If you promise to give something away, make sure your customers know that you actually gave it away. Post pictures of the winners on your website and in your social media. It legitimizes what you are doing and might entice more people to answer the survey next time you send one out.winners

Murphy is doing an excellent job with their customer satisfaction program and the results are evident if you ever visit one of their stores. I highly recommend you do.

But there are a few things they could do to improve. We’ll cover those on next week’s blog.

Do you use any of the techniques that Murphy does? Got any other great ideas you’d like to share?

Thank you for being a part of our values driven community!

Image courtesy of www.murphyusa.com.

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