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any utility. If the home heating oil person competes with a major integrated utility on service they will win every time.
FON: What are the specific incentives that you anticipate provid- ing both your motor fuel and home heating oil customers to pick up the program?
FON: 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, electri- cal 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
Petrowski: Probably on an annual basis, and depending 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 meaningful amount to customers it's going to give them a meaningful amount 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 providing 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 cus- tomer that's as good as it gets. l FON
www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | MARCH 2012 17
