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high there can be significant savings by switching. Ultimately, we'd like to be in many, many states and some states will be more appealing than others and that's where we want to put our marketing efforts.
NPN Magazine: What was the feedback you received for this idea from your fuel oil partners?
Petrowski: It's been quite positive. I have long promoted the idea that they have to see themselves as home comfort technicians and not strictly fuel providers. I think the niche for home heating oil people in addition to being full service providers for oil, electrical or even natural gas is to focus on efficiency, installation and better burner service. I think there's a lot of money to be made on not wasting energy and I think our dealers do that better than any utility. If the home heating oil person competes with a major integrated utility on service they will win every time.
NPN Magazine: What are the specific incentives that you anticipate providing both your motor fuel and home heating oil customers to pick up the program?
Petrowski: Probably on an annual basis, and depend- ing upon the spread between regulated and unregulated
states, they could earn anywhere between $10 per customer to $50 per customer per year. So if they can generate a meaning- ful amount to custom- ers it's going to give them a mean- i n g f u l amo u n t of revenue per year. Beyond that I think it allows them to have a stickier customer. The more relationships you can have with the customer the better. An initial offer will be to provide an electric customer
with a free gas card—believe it's for $25. Down the line we envision other cross marketing opportunities for example tying heating oil and home electricity sales together or pro- viding electric service benefits based on store loyalty. If you wind up delivering the service or product cheaper than they're getting now, and you deliver it well, and you do not make it confusing or difficult to switch or get service once you have multiple revenue connections to your customer that's as good as it gets.
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MARCH 2012 11
