News

Greeting the World with cards

June 2006

COMMENT: DAVID WEAVER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, LOGICAL MINDS

Bayford’s online fuel card solution will be a powerful tool for both the marketing and delivery of its fuel card services.

As there are many fuel card providers with online offerings, it is vital that its web solution clearly communicates superior benefits to the customer – what does its service offer over and above the competition?

In addition to attracting immediate online sales, www.fuelcards.co.uk will provide a new source of leads for larger clients who might prefer to source suppliers through a more traditional face-to-face route. In both cases, the quality and range of the online services provided will be critical to securing new and retaining existing customers.

The easier to use and the more comprehensive the service is, the more it will become an integral part of the customer’s business process. The immediate availability of online information will save its customers money and thus aid Bayford’s customer retention.

In addition, Bayford should consider making services available to mobile phone and PDA users. These services would help to set it apart from its competition and might not require as much investment as it may think. Other services that can be made available via its online systems include route planning and fuel station locators.

When considering budgets, Bayford will need to cater for all of the following: internal planning and management, up front investment, ongoing maintenance and future enhancements. It would be well advised to spread the costs over a number of phases, each building on the success of implementing essential requirements only at each phase.

In terms of promoting awareness of the new service, there are a myriad of marketing opportunities open to Bayford and therefore once again it should consult a specialist, ideally a small e-marketing company with experience and an understanding of which campaigns would be most effective.

In fact, e-marketing campaigns that it could consider include: online magazines, blogging, reciprocal links and partner sites. Also, more usual forms of e-marketing could be employed including: directories, pay per click advertising and search engine optimisation.

By tying e-marketing campaigns into its online systems, Bayford can track each campaign independently such that the cost per new customer can be assessed, allowing it to tailor future campaigns accordingly.

Of course, let’s not forget that traditional marketing activities can be dove-tailed with the electronic variety and with Bayford having 175 Gulf petrol stations, there is ample opportunity for it to build awareness through forecourt advertising.

Now for the more technical part. To retain customers, Bayford will need to ensure that its systems remain secure and operational.
A dedicated and remotely hosted server solution will be required, which should be secured through regular software updates and firewall protection. These services really are better outsourced to a specialist provider.

Bayford also need to assess what volume of users would access the service simultaneously and size the entire solution appropriately to ensure that the service does not degrade at peak times. The overall server solution should also be capable of future expansion, as the numbers of users grow over time.

Bayford needs to assess how important it is for its customers that the system is available 99.9 per cent of the time and how customer perception can be affected should the systems be unavailable. An appropriate failover and backup strategy can then be implemented to suit Bayford’s risk management strategy.

The online solution should be developed by an experienced solution provider who can provide a documented set of security policies (such as data protection and password encryption), which must be backed up by a third party carrying out independent ‘vulnerability testing’.

Yorkshire has a wealth of online design, development and e-marketing companies, but Bayford should be cautious of using suppliers that claim to offer a one stop solution in all disciplines. It is rare for companies to demonstrate expertise in every aspect of such a solution.