Tag Archives: Relationships

Automating House Accounts

houseThe term HOUSE ACCOUNT connotes relationships, trust, and repeat business. Our business facilitates this important function by automating house charges and making it easier for you to grow your business and focus on your customers. Intevacon is the leading software company to provide real time proprietary payment card processing.

Below are a few of the benefits you will find in automating your house charges:

  1. Centralized communication and updates: the Intevacon system is real time and allows updates to accounts, cards, drivers, and merchant sites from one central host. This means that all updates are immediately recognized across sites and your customers experience consistent service everywhere they fuel.
  2. Increased security: only authorized drivers are able to fuel by enforcing PIN at the pump and register. Additionally, other prompts and/or product restrictions can be enforced to further manage the transactions that occur.
  3. Purchase management: offer product restrictions to your customers to help them manage their fleet. Also track driver and vehicle ids for each transaction.
  4. Pay at the pump convenience: your customers can use their cards to pay at the pump or they can go inside for purchases. Improve the customer experience and reduce transaction time for your store clerks.
  5. Streamline billing processes: invoice your customers directly out of our system. We provide full controls for you to bill on your schedule and give your customers detailed transaction information on their invoice. We also provide a transfer file to upload directly to your accounting system for quick reconciliation.
  6. Customer Access: give your customers online access to view their activity and manage their fleet account. This gives your customers the autonomy to make simple changes to their account and reduces the requests that you have to fulfill. Reports and invoices are also accessible to your customers with online access.

There are many more benefits that Intevacon provides by automating your house charges. We’d love to talk to you about how to partner together to grow your business.  Find out more about the Intevacon Fleet Card System by reaching out at 678-739-4450 or emailing moreinfo@intevacon.com.

Relationship-based Loyalty

saleAttracting customers is the goal of all retailers. The effort to attain this position can be costly depending on the methods employed. A study by COLLOQUY published in a recent NACS article states that the typical American household carries membership to about 29 loyalty programs, while only being active in 12 of them. What’s more, the convenience and fuel retail industry saw a 3% drop in loyalty program participation by the end of 2014. The cost of hosting a loyalty program, as well as potential additional discounting, means that some loyalty programs really do come with a premium.

The whole point of loyalty programs is to achieve customer loyalty with repeat business. Sometimes the cost of a loyalty program is worth the expense if a truly loyal customer relationship is achieved. And then sometimes, the retailer attracts a deal-seeker on one specific day, never to see that customer again. An earlier article published by NACS titled “When It Comes to Loyalty, Agree to Disagree” states that about 73% of consumers believe that loyalty programs should be a way for brands to show consumers how loyal they are to them as a customer. Many retailers think that the relationship should be the other way.

Intevacon likes loyalty too, but we have a different approach to achieving this end. We equip our customers to foster relationships with their customers. Our petroleum marketers gain exclusive loyalty by offering a fleet card at their sites. This card offers the benefit of fleet management such as driver and vehicle allocations, product restrictions, and real-time controls. User access is also available if petroleum marketers want to offer this added benefit. Special pricing is available for the petroleum marketer who wants to give his/her customers cost plus or cents per gallon discounts. Our loyalty comes with repeat business every time your customer uses his/her fleet card at your sites.

An article in PYMNTS.COM titled “Bread, Bananas and Building Better Customer Retention” describes the loyalty program cycle perfectly in this statement: “They are product shoppers – looking for a specific item on a specific day – sort of like the daily deal seeker. They may not come back, which means there is some possibility that the effort spent acquiring them may have only netted one – sometimes deeply – discounted sale.” At Intevacon, we hope that you capture the loyalty of every customer who comes through your doors. Even better, we want to help you gain the relationships that sustain both you and your customers in business.

If you want to find out more about Intevacon or talk to someone on our team, please call 678-739-4450 or email moreinfo@intevacon.com.

The Loyalty of Fleet

carrotThere is no doubt that customer loyalty is at a premium right now. Everywhere you look, there are schemes created to engage with consumers and lock in their loyalty. The petroleum industry is no different—football promos, sweepstakes, gas giveaways, reward cards, special discounts, free showers at truck stops—the list goes on.

According to a study by Boston Consulting Group, the average U.S. household has 22 loyalty-program memberships and actively uses 10. As more and more companies establish and/or refine their loyalty programs, it will only become more challenging to capture the attention and loyalty of consumers.

One of the most valuable attributes derived from loyalty programs is the opportunity to form a relationship with the customer. As discussed in a former blog post, Building Relationships and Profiting from Repeat Business, a joint study by Manta and BIA/Kelsey found that 61% of small business owners report that half of their annual revenue comes from repeat customers. The study also notes that repeat customers spend 67% more than a new customer.

The Intevacon fleet card system is designed so that the petroleum marketer maintains a direct relationship with the cardholder. This is contrary to most card programs. In the case of Visa or Mastercard, the issuer is often a bank and there is little incentive for the cardholder to feel any vested interest in the merchant. In most traditional card transactions, the merchant has no connection to the cardholder other than dispensing fuel and providing a clean restroom.

Intevacon offers the opportunity for the petroleum marketer to own the relationship with his/her cardholders, and our hope is that this helps grow business and increase revenue. Fleet business affords a more consistent and higher volume transaction than most transient consumers. The average fleet card transaction processed through our system is about $104. This is about three times higher than the average consumer spends in fuel per week. Capturing the fleet business and fostering relationships with cardholders is a coveted position for petroleum marketers, and Intevacon was created to help facilitate this relationship.

Find out more about the Intevacon Fleet Card System by reaching out at 678-739-4450 or emailing moreinfo@intevacon.com.

Building Relationships and Profiting from Repeat Business

Intevacon is all about relationships —we value the relationships that we form with our marketers, and we do everything that we can to facilitate relationships between you and your customers. The Intevacon model puts the marketer directly in the center of the card processing relationship, and this is by design. It turns out that this is also a profirepeattable approach.

A joint study by Manta and BIA/Kelsey found that 61% of small business owners report that half of their annual revenue comes from repeat customers. It also notes that repeat customers spend 67% more than a new customer. Watching this trend, small business owners are starting to invest more resources into developing relationships with their existing customer base.

Are you growing a base of repeat customers? An article by MediaPost notes that many small business owners do not utilize technology to their advantage when it comes to building loyalty and repeat business.

We know that c-stores account for 34.3% of all retail outlets as of December 2013, according to NACS. A recent NPD study found that the average consumer visits a c-store six times in a 30-day period, but that number has decreased by 1.3% in the fourth quarter of 2013. An article in Convenience Store Decisions quotes an NPD convenience store industry analyst saying, “It will remain a challenging and competitive environment in 2014 and retailers will continue to fight for dollars. C-stores can hold on to their base with the right product mix, selection, and quality, all of which are growing reasons why consumers choose the stores they do.”

The Intevacon fleet card and prepaid card are valuable tools to help you maintain repeat visits from your customers, both with consumer and commercial accounts. The proprietary fleet card and prepaid card can be accepted at all of your sites and allows your customers to receive level 3 card processing data. To help manage your accounts, you can give your cardholders access to the system to see their own data and run reports. The Intevacon system is intuitively designed and it gives you all of the controls that your customers want to manage their fleet accounts. With the time saved by using our system, you will have time to turn more new customer business into repeat customer business. Protect your margins by saving yourself from swipe fees, and increase repeat business by providing a fleet or prepaid card.

Margins for Growth with Intevacon

iStock_000009737415SmallIntevacon continues to grow each month in the number of customers who use our system and enjoy the benefits of a proprietary fleet card and prepaid card.  It looks like the industry in general is growing as well.  A Nielson study was published recently stating that the U.S. convenience store count increased by 1.4% in 2013, adding 2,062 stores.1,2  Probably even more striking, the convenience store industry has doubled in size over the last three decades. 1,2    This is not totally surprising considering that consumers increasingly view convenience stores as more than just an opportunity to purchase fuel.  Convenience stores satisfy the demands of on-the-go consumers with their ever-expanding product lines, from fresh foods to a myriad of beverages.  In total, convenience stores comprise 34.3% of all retail outlets according to Neilson. 1,2    Of these convenience stores, 62.8% of them are managed by single-store operators. 1,2

More good news for the convenience store industry—a study from Sageworks indicates that 2013 was a strong year for fuel profits at privately held gas stations, with net profits rising almost 3% on average.3  While this is a great trend, the study also noted that privately held gas station owners experienced very little profit from each gallon of gas because the margins tend to be so thin after factoring in the original wholesale cost, taxes, and swipe fees. 3   As a contrast, convenience store retailers have a lower net profit margin on average than most retailers, with the average privately held company across all industries averaging more than 8% net profit margin. 3   This low net profit margin experienced by marketers is yet another reason why Intevacon is excited to be growing.  We are able to offer an innovative and dependable system to our marketers without the high transaction fees that are typically associated with standard credit cards.  We succeed when our marketers succeed, and that is why we have created a pricing structure that allows for higher margins and keeps the marketer in control of his/her customers.

The convenience store industry comprises an invaluable place in our society.  Intevacon is proud to offer alternative payment solutions to our marketers, both in the form of fleet cards and prepaid cards.  We enjoy growing relationships throughout the industry, and we aim to support our customers through all of their successes with a system that is both flexible and innovative to their needs.

  1. “Convenience Store Count Tops 149,000.”  NACS. January 2014. Web. January 2014. http://www.nacsonline.com/News/Daily/Pages/ND0123132.aspx#.Uuqzt_uYV6s
  2. “Convenience Store Industry Adds More Than 2,000 Stores.” CSP.net. January 2014. Web. January 2014. http://www.cspnet.com/industry-news-analysis/corporate-news/articles/convenience-store-industry-adds-more-2000-stores
  3. “Fewer Expenses, Bigger Margins in 2013.” CSP.net. January 2014. Web. January 2014. http://www.cspnet.com/fuels-news-prices-analysis/fuels-analysis/articles/fewer-expenses-bigger-margins-2013

Contact us at 678-739-4450 or moreinfo@intevacon.com to get more information.  http://www.Intevacon.com

The Connection Economy

There is no doubt iStock_000000050552_L3that business models have shifted in the last few years.  Consumer expectations are changing every day.  Generational theory addresses the mindset shift of each new generation: Silent, Boomer, Gen-Xer, and Millennial.  Retailers are constantly attempting to understand how to cater to generations of the past and the future.  Employers are changing their strategies on hiring and retention.  Education systems are attempting new approaches to learning.  But there is more to the current shift in society than can be attributed to the changing generations.  Our economy has changed from the industrial age to the information age, and more recently the term Connection Economy has been used to describe our current state. 

I don’t know about you, but there is something almost hopeful in coining this new era as the Connection Economy.  It is hopeful because it not only comprises the advantages of a digital age, but it also marries relationship to resource.  This term was first introduced by Seth Godin in his book The Icarus Deception.  This concept can also be found peppered throughout his blog. 

Excerpts from one of Seth Godin’s blogs describing the Connection Economy are listed below.  The complete blog post can be read here.

[T]he connection economy, our economy, the economy of the foreseeable future, embraces abundance. No, we don’t have an endless supply of the resources we used to trade and covet. No, we certainly don’t have a surplus of time, either. But we do have an abundance of choice, an abundance of connection, and an abundance of access to knowledge.

The connection economy continues to gain traction because connections scale, information begets more information, and influence accrues to those who create this abundance. As connections scale, these connections paradoxically make it easier for others to connect as well, because anyone with talent or passion can leverage the networks created by connection to increase her impact. The connection economy doesn’t create jobs where we get picked and then get paid; the connection economy builds opportunities for us to connect, and then demands that we pick ourselves.

Just as the phone network becomes more valuable when more phones are connected (scarcity is the enemy of value in a network), the connection economy becomes more valuable as we scale it.

Friends bring us more friends. A reputation brings us a chance to build a better reputation. Access to information encourages us to seek ever more information. The connections in our life multiply and increase in value.

In an era where relationships are rewarded with abundance and access is a privilege shared without discrimination, Intevacon is excited to participate in this new Connection Economy.  And we couldn’t be happier than to share in the abundance with our marketers.