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communicate those budgets to their staff,"
Levins said. "It's unfair to give the people in the
field the budgetary constraints and the budgetary limits, but not give them the ability to look
at how they're performing so they can make
adjustments every day during the month." The
Brite system "allows people to see how well
they're performing on a daily basis so they can
make course corrections," Levins said.
By tracking and reporting volume and
margin the system helps reinforce fiscal discipline, he said. The software generates reports
and "pushes" them to the user, Levins said.
The reports include, for example, details on
service revenue from installations, contract
billing and non-contract time and labor billing. "Dealers have to start making money on
service – or at least breaking even," Levins
said. "No longer is service subsidized by the
oil margin."
The software helps a fuel oil dealer set margins and define the role of hedging to protect
price program margins "so you have realistic goals for the next twelve months," Levins
said.
One of the reports generated by the system tallies customers lost, including a note on
the reason why each customer left. Customer
turnover or "churn" is an increasing challenge,
and some companies now are hiring "retention specialists."
"When a customer service rep is unable
to save an account, they immediately switch
the customer to this person who is trained in
retention of customers," Levins said. The specialist is given authority to give discounts, for
example, and they can make promises, having
latitude "to do things the customer service representative is not permitted to do," he said.
By one estimate, the cost of landing a new
customer is $600, Levins said, though that
might not be true for all. Each fuel oil dealer,
however, should know what it costs his or her
business to sign up a new customer. Expenses
to gain a new customer include: commissions,
giveaways, advertising, marketing.
If a dealer gains 20 customers and loses 18,
it's a mistake to think he's ahead of the game,
Levins contended, "because the losses are customers that have been with you 5, 10, 15, 20
years." Long-time customers are known quantities, Levins pointed out. The dealer knows
their seasonal consumption of fuel and has
sold equipment and service contracts to them.
The new customers are unknown quantities,
and a dealer is likely to be replacing parts on
their equipment, possibly taking a loss on the
service contract for the first year, Levins said.
Some 18 months will have to pass before they
become a "good" customer, he said.
Another report that the system processes
and delivers to users via the website focuses
on driver productivity, which is largely dependent on efficient dispatching, Levins noted. If
a driver spends four hours delivering fuel oil
and the remainder of the work day "painting
tanks" or on some other task that generates
www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | AUGUST 2013
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