The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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FUE L DE L I V E RY Continued from page 27 of degree day forecasting and actual inven- tory monitoring.” His company’s software supports degree day forecasting, Turner said, and he encourages fuel oil dealers to use it. “If you’ve got small users who buy a few hun- dred gallons of heating oil a year—getting their tanks filled once or twice a season— that’s not a bad method,” Turner said. “For larger users of heating oil and pro- pane it makes sense to physically monitor the inventory with a remote device,” Turner said. There are a number of companies that offer inventory reading products, “and the price has dropped dramatically on those devices,” Turner observed. Whereas a few years ago they cost many hundreds of dol- lars, plus monthly fees, today Firestream Worldwide is able to offer the equipment and monitoring “all in” for $49 per month. That makes it fiscally feasible for fuel oil dealers to monitor their larger-volume customers, Turner said. “You want to be watching their real inventory so you can replenish them in time and not have them run out,” Turner said. Another growing trend is allowing cus- tomers to access their account information on a portal, Turner said. Enabling custom- ers to sign into the fuel oil dealer’s website, using account information or an email address, can be a labor-saver. Customers can see what their standing is, including their next forecasted delivery, the date of their last delivery, and the status of their budget billing or pre-buy programs. This is becoming increasingly common, Turner said, and is not difficult to roll out. “Really, giving people as many different accesses to the information as they can pos- sibly have—without them having to call you—is a good thing,” Turner observed. Consistently “pushing out” infor- mation, whether to dispatchers, office managers or customers, is another tactic that can benefit fuel oil dealers. The term refers to alerting those people to important information, or in software lingo, “key performance indicators” or, simply, “exception reporting.” Turner offers an example of what a fuel oil dealer might do in this regard: “Every 46 day when you come into the office it’s bet- ter to have an email that says, ‘These three customers missed their budget payments yesterday’”—far better, he said, than hav- ing to run a 30-page or 50-page report on all budget customers and having to sift through it with a highlighter to find all the ones that didn’t pay. This practice of “pushing out” key bits of information extends to automated notification of scheduled deliveries and messages providing pre-buy information, Turner said, noting that Firestream’s soft- ware includes a tool that allows the fuel oil dealers to do just that, so their customers “know what’s going on.” Anyone who has shopped online usu- ally has had the experience include an email telling them the order was received, and then another telling them the order was shipped, Turner said. The same drill can be followed to good effect in fuel oil dealing, he pointed out, especially since dealers are constantly calculating degree days for all of their accounts. “Why not proactively send an email,” Turner said. The message could alert a customer that the dealer’s forecasting shows a delivery will be needed later in the week, and that the dealer plans to deliver that Thursday. By taking such measures, dealers can pre-empt phone calls from concerned customers who want to make sure they get a delivery. A lot of deliveries are made when the customer is not home, he also noted. Firestream’s software enables automated emails to customers telling them a delivery was made, the number of gallons, and that an invoice for a particular amount was left at the house, along with a polite request for payment. “It’s really about creating a good cus- tomer service experience,” Turner said. “It makes your business look more efficient. And this is a competitive business. There is usually more than one dealer people can buy heating oil from.” SMARTLOGIX “We have technology on the truck that taps every event that occurs,” said Dan JUNE 2011 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com Warren, vice president of marketing and brand manager for SmartLogix, meaning the system digitally records the register, verifies and confirms the bill of lading number and number of gallons loaded. Each “event”—e.g., delivery—is recorded by the system with a time stamp and a stamp of the longitude and latitude. Such data, including signature capture and “totalizer” information, are transmit- ted in real time, Warren said, as opposed to being stored for some period of time before being forwarded to a dealer’s office computer system. The SmartLogix system can interface with any back office account- ing system, Warren added. A short-range WiFi-like setup between the handheld and the truck enable a deliv- eryman who is, say, behind a house filling a tank, to shut down the solenoid valve on the truck remotely if there is a break in the pipe, Warren said. The vendor’s support of the system is enhanced by the fact that the Motorola handhelds used in the field have Internet provider (IP) addresses. “We can remotely access drivers’ handhelds, and control the handheld as if we were there, pushing the buttons ourselves,” Warren said, “so we can remotely support them.” The heart of the onboard system is a small computer that includes a router. The computer is wired directly to the register for digital recording of gallons dispensed. “It’s hard-wired to the register because that is the one most important piece of information,” Warren noted. Tank monitors can be programmed remotely via a website, and can be set to report tank levels at a specific time, at pre- determined intervals, or when a significant change in tank volume is detected, the company’s literature states. Security features include a GPS-based “geo-fencing” feature that can issue an alert if a truck’s location does not match up with an actual customer location. There is also a belly valve alarm, designed to deter theft of fuel; it too sends an alert, in the form of an email or text message to a manager’s or supervisor’s mobile phone. l FON