4 Ways BP Is Advancing in 2019
By Samantha Oller on Mar. 15, 2019HOUSTON — This year will be one of tremendous growth and evolution for BP across multiple fronts, from its embrace of frictionless retail to its pursuit of the future of energy. Nicola Buck, head of fuels marketing, North America, for Houston-based BP, spoke with CSP Daily News about the major oil company’s multipronged strategy for growing its branded network and improving the customer experience in 2019.
The focus areas include …
Digital and data
In 2018, BP introduced its BPme mobile app, which is connected to its BP Driver Rewards loyalty program, with the aim of making the fueling experience frictionless. It began rolling out in-car payment capability nationally in January and will continue the process through 2019.
“That's really about improving that site experience for our consumers, and then throughout 2019, adding in new features to the experience to make the kind of relationship with our consumers even stickier,” Buck said.
As customers use the app and loyalty program, BP aims to make the rewards more relevant.
“Once we start collecting that data from our consumers, we will be able to tailor the products, offers and services that we developed to be personalized and highly targeted to all our consumers,” Buck said. “And we serve around 3 million consumers a day, so it's a big deal.”
Customer experience
In 2018, BP debuted a new version of its Helios site standards program, including new carrots and sticks to encourage its branded marketers to meet and exceed the brand standards and customer experience.
“We're seeing our site experience scores reach top levels, and levels of positivity that we've not seen in many years thanks to the success of that program,” Buck said, noting that in the second half of 2018, BP saw some of its best site experience scores ever.
“We'll be taking all of those learnings and continuing to roll that out and improve that as we go into this year and looking at how we work with our customers to help their businesses run as effectively as possible, and keep those site experiences the very kind of top levels that you would expect from a brand like BP,” Buck said.
Amoco
The revamped Helios program is also now connected to the Amoco brand, which BP reintroduced in 2017 as an option for its BP-branded marketers where there are otherwise site conflicts. As of year-end 2018, there were 64 Amoco-branded sites in the United States, with 100 more in the pipeline for 2019. In March, the first Amoco site in Florida is set to open.
Amoco has had a halo effect on BP’s total branded store network, Buck said.
“To qualify for the Amoco brand, we want to make sure that we've got great-quality sites that reflect the brand standards we would expect,” Buck said. “The Amoco brand does give that pull in the market that is also kind of raising site standards across our entire network.”
Since the first Amoco sites opened in late 2017 on the East Coast, BP has been making some “tweaks” to the image—specifically, to better connect Amoco’s relationship to BP.
“Just like Exxon and Mobil work together, we want customers to understand they can use their BP credit cards, for example, across both brands,” Buck said. “So that's what we've been learning and improving and optimizing and that's starting to work really well for us now.”
The future of energy
BP is not new to electric-vehicle (EV) charging, and not even new to the offer in the United States, having tested it in the past decade. Now it is ramping up activity again through investments in companies such as mobile EV charger manufacturer FreeWire Technologies and battery manufacturer StoreDot. BP also launched the BP Chargemaster EV charging network in the United Kingdom with its acquisition of charging station provider Chargemaster.
“You have seen the investments we’re making in [companies] like FreeWire and StoreDot and that is all about making sure we are ready for the challenges that come our way,” Buck said. When will BP bring EV charging to its U.S. sites? While she could not speak specifically to U.S. plans for EV charging, Buck said it speaks to a general trend for the company. “What you can see in the investments we're making is the company starting to lead in that direction,” she said, “and we will hope to take things here at the relevant time.”