HOW TO BUILD ‘ WILL CALL ’ BUSINESS ON THE WEB
By Maura Keller
Many fuel marketers have tended to take a dim view of the COD and will-call business . But COD and will-call customers are playing a new and more important role in the profit picture , say Mark Stillman and John Vrabel , co-founders of Energy Engine in Stroudsburg , Pa . The company provides a web-based platform designed to help fuel marketers sell heating oil , propane , commercial fuel and related energy products online . This winter it presented a webinar , “ The Season of Growing . Gifts from the New Will Call .”
Stillman says that those in the propane business can substitute “ customer-owned tank ” for will-call and COD ; propane industry players face similar challenges as their heating oil counterparts , he says , with consumers exercising greater and greater freedom of choice .
Energy Engine ’ s intention in presenting the webinar was not to convince fuel marketers that will-call and COD are the future of the industry . Rather , they happen to be areas of growth in the industry that many marketers have a dubious impression of , Stillman says . Energy Engine ’ s goal was to encourage people to rethink preconceived notions about will-call and COD — and to help fuel and propane marketers gain insight into how to attract and convert a new breed of will-call and COD customers without hurting their company ’ s brand or losing money . In addition , the webinar reviewed how to effectively use online tools to engage will-call and COD customers ; delved into what an e-commerce strategy looks like ; and advised how to compete with discounters .
In the webinar , presented on Dec . 13 and repeated on Dec . 14 , Stillman set the stage by putting the subject in the context of recent history . Just 10 years ago , he says : Facebook was competing with Myspace Amazon was selling books The first iPhone was just released We still went to brick and mortar stores We had never heard of the word “ ecommerce ” Millennials were just 10 years old
Millennials were the first generation in the fuel industry and other industries to change the term “ customer service ” to “ customer experience ,” Stillman says . Today a company can do a really good job ‘ servicing the customer ’ but this doesn ’ t mean the customer has a great experience doing business with that company , he says . Ideally , a company provides a totality of service that goes beyond the “ little minutes ” that impress a customer via phone or mail , Stillman says .
“ Customer experience is really hard today ,” he says . “ Consumers are simply so much harder to please .” Stillman points to a popular quote attributed to Salesforce : “ Only a short time ago , businesses had the attention of customers ; today customers have the attention of businesses .” Indeed , today ’ s customers have gained power and insight and they are aware of the myriad choices they have to purchase anything , and they are leveraging that power .
What ’ s more , the digital revolution has created an entirely new breed of customer for the fuel business , one that is becoming increasingly difficult to please . Thanks to our digital environment , these customers have the ability to go online and quickly , easily evaluate a fuel company ’ s competitors . That has changed the tone of the fuel industry . It has also led to a world where today ’ s
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20 FEBRUARY 2019 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www . fueloilnews . com