We finish our rollcall of 2019 award winners with Best Oil Company Initiative, Best Motorway Services site, the Special Recognition award plus three more from the specialist categories line-up
Shell Jamie Oliver deli by Shell
Shell enlisted the help of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to shake up its food-to-go offer. This long-term collaboration between Shell and Jamie Oliver came at a time when an IPSOS Mori survey found that over half (56%) of UK drivers want healthier choices on the go.
"Food on the go is going to become a far bigger, more normal part of everyone’s busy modern lives so it’s essential we make it more enjoyable through better quality ingredients and exciting flavours," says Oliver. "My pledge is to keep listening to what Shell’s customers want, keep improving standards and be as useful as I possibly can be for Britain’s busy motorists."
Jamie Oliver and Shell injected more fruit, veg and colour into the range, to give people what they’re asking for exciting, tasty, healthier food. This included 69% more fruit and vegetables across the sandwich range, which will contribute to an estimated 1.2 million additional portions of daily fruit and veg, annually.
Extensive pos material featuring Oliver advertises the range across sites.
Consumer response has been extremely positive with people saying they loved all the veggie options and the healthier-than-normal sandwiches.
Other comments included: "Always fresh and tastes incredible" and "Great work Shell (and Jamie). Keep it up!".
Highly commended BP BPme Rewards
BP’s goal was to design a rewards programme that enables its customers to interact with it in a way that is personal to them and suits their lifestyle.
BP said this took personalisation beyond CRM, offering customers flexibility in how they can interact with the programme, combined with choice in how they choose to redeem their rewards, with the distinctive ability to earn little treats more often or save for higher value appealing rewards that offer choice and value.
BPme Rewards was launched in June 2019.
The scale of the operation was enormous. In conjunction with its dealer partners and agencies within 18 months BP developed 40-plus customer loyalty concepts. It refined these through research with over 4,000 customers and more than 200 hours of interviews and workshops with stakeholders.
BP also designed and delivered a new loyalty website and a new online customer rewards catalogue. The catalogue means customers can save up their points for bigger items for Christmas or birthdays. They can redeem fully with points or with points plus cash
BPme got off to an astonishing success within just two months, it had over 1.8 million active customers, with many taking advantage of ’little treats more often’ through redemptions in store.
Motorway services Sanj Kular Shell Beaconsfield
Shell Beaconsfield was the runner up at the 2018 Forecourt Trader Awards for this category. Since then this flagship site has undergone numerous changes to make the customer experience even better. After successfully having piloted the launch of hydrogen in 2018, in 2019 it piloted the new Jamie Oliver food offer.
The shop was totally reformatted and, having taken into account customer feedback, the new Jamie Oliver food area was placed at the centre of the shop along with four Costa machines, three of which were placed next to the hot food area. Shell says the changes have brought in tremendous growth with the sales in the shop up by almost 20%.
During reconfiguration they also looked at other opportunities and decided to cater more for specialist customers such as truck and van drivers. Items such as travel kettles, jackets, blankets, TVs and chrome cleaners are now stocked.
The company says these items have had a great impact not just on sales but also on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The site also scores highly in Shell’s Treated Like A Guest score scheme (85%). Feedback is based totally on emailed customer responses and so is truly verifiable. The site’s latest score represents a big improvement on previous scores and is testament to the hard work of the team.
Special recognition David Charman Parkfoot Garage, West Malling, Kent
David Charman was the first winner of the Forecourt Trader of the Year Awards in 1996 and has been a winner ever since, as he has constantly transformed and evolved his business to accommodate changing market forces and challenges. He is a leader and an innovator and widely respected by the industry through his involvement with the Lakeside Group, Petrol Retailers’ Association and as the founder and former chairman of the Car Wash Association.
Parkfoot Garage is a third-generation, family business celebrating 70 years in the industry. The site in West Malling has undergone many changes, including a very significant £150k excavation of rock several years ago to create a spacious and leading-edge c-store, including bakery and a first-class butchery, which today claims to have the best range of BBQ meats in the area. Last year a £500k investment saw the development of a new goods-in area; a giant walk-in fridge and freezer; as well as an upstairs office for staff. The site also features a strong car wash offer with four Aquatec jet washes payable with a phone app.
A very worthy winner, David’s site bristles with ideas and innovation and reflects his driving force to constantly improve and ensure both his staff and customers are happy.
best site manager Samuel McCann Eurospar Carrick Milestone
Store manager Samuel ’Sam’ McCann has worked in retail for over 25 years. During this time he has managed six different stores and has been site manager of Eurospar Carrick Milestone for more than three years. Staff at the Hendersons-owned site say he really deserved the title of Best Site Manager as he is a truly great leader who inspires the team daily to go the extra mile.
Sam himself would say that the team are the driving force behind the store’s success but they say this ultimately stems from his guidance and leadership.
For a manager to be truly successful they must be able to stay ahead of the competition. Sam did this with protein bars and nutritional supplements by seeing the opportunity and adding them to the store’s range long before a lot of other forecourts.
He was also instrumental in extending the Post Office and Ticketmaster hours to mirror those of the main store, which has been a big success and particularly welcomed by customers who work during traditional PO opening hours.
best soft drinks outlets Joanne Walker Eurospar Donegall Road, Belfast
At Eurospar Donegall Road soft drinks play a key role, typically averaging about 10% of store sales, with over 5% contributed from impulse drinks alone.
All leading brands are represented as well as new products and a wide range of health/energy drinks, large take-home bottles and multipacks.
Sales are driven not only from the main fixtures but from promotional locations as well. Promotions represent a big part of the store’s sales as it is located in a low-income area of South Belfast. Driving a strong promotional message and offering value is an important part of the business. There are 12 dedicated gondola ends for promotions and often four or five of these will have soft drinks displayed, often complemented with crisps or snacks, or waters with energy or cereal bars, or lunchbox multipacks with kids snacks. In addition, they often use space around the shop for building stacks or bulk displays for key lines, this could be as you enter the store adjacent to the coffee machine, or in the centre aisle or alternatively in the queue system itself.
best valeting facilities Graham Kennedy Inner Space Station, York
Inner Space Stations is home to an amazing car wash facility, with its touchless car wash and five-bay Planet Wash valeting centre, enabling customers to wash and vacuum their car, check their screen wash, air and fragrance and even blow-dry their car from one station. Despite a lot of competition from hand car washes, people travel from miles around to get their cars cleaned here.
The touchless car wash offers three programme levels: The Blast Off, The Supernova and The Outer Limits! with the latter, which costs £8.50, being far and away the best seller. Owner Graham Kennedy MBE says the machine generates more than £100,000-worth of income a year which he believes is probably one of the highest revenues in the UK from a single machine.
Planet Wash was recently refurbished with £70,000 invested in separate water feed systems, new pumps and computer-controlled analysis, which can vary the timings.
With the site renowned for its sci-fi branding, the facilities are guarded by two Transformers Bumblebee and Octopus Prime.
No comments yet