To capture new or disengaged consumers, there is a “whole litany of marketplaces out there” to participate in, said Jeff Sankhagowit (second from left), director of fuel pricing and analytics at Delek U.S. Holdings, Brentwood, Tennessee, atCSP’s Outlook Leadership conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, last week.
Sankhagowit participated in a panel at Outlook with Samuel Zanini (second from right), vice president of revenue at Terrible’s, Las Vegas; Tom Weinandy (right), research economist at Upside, Washington; and David Poulnot (left), vice president of fuel sales at Upside.
- Delek U.S. Holdings is No. 31 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by size. Terrible’s is No. 46.
Sankhagowit said that once customers are in the store, Delek influences the buying journey by leveraging its loyalty program.
“I wouldn’t think of these marketplaces and these loyalty programs as mutually exclusive things, Sankhagowit said. “They roll into each other. Other people are effectively acquiring consumers for us. We're converting them into our loyalty program, and then we're keeping them loyal by encouraging them to use the loyalty program based on personalized offers, fuel discounts, etc.”
From an operation standpoint, a retailer has to offer a good training program, Zanini said.
“I know that's a little bit more of a challenging thing to overcome because it's a training issue, but their employees are going to be your No. 1 sellers in regard to why a customer should sign up for your app,” said Zanini.
In regard to retention, not much has changed in the c-store world for a long time, he said, other than the introduction of quick-service food.
“I think the missing piece on the c-store side specifically is really strong customer engagement from a lifecycle management standpoint,” Zanini said.
Measuring success should be standard, he said, and retailers should know the answers to questions like “How are [offers] actually performing? How many customers came in under that promotion? Was it profitable, not profitable? What was my ROI on that promotion?”
With data, Delek can see when employees are pushing the loyalty program in two to five weeks, Sankhagowit said.
“We lean heavily into our operations team because we know at the end of the day, they're making the consumer experience what it is,” he said.
Digitalizing the loyalty program allows a retailer to “break this long-term paradigm that relies on a customer physically seeing your location and then making a purchasing decision on the spot,” said David Poulnot.
Digitalizing the business allows a retailer to reach customers who may have never seen the physical location.
“To Sam's point about lifecycle management, it gives you the opportunity to manage those people for a longer period of time,” said Poulnot.
Terrible’s uses the gamification tactic by incentivizing its customers to increase their basket size by spinning a wheel to win prizes. When a customer spends $15, they can spin the wheel on the app, and they always win a prize, Zanini said. There’s also an advanced wheel that requires more spending but gets customers better deals.
The wheel prizes include things like cash discounts or a water bottle, which the vendors supply.
Terrible’s aims to measure if there is more customer spend as a result.
“We're seeing continual growth in that. We're seeing customers engaged, and we're seeing customers increasing their spend with us,” said Zanini.
Terrible’s also offers giveaways. If customers come in and spend a certain amount, they can win a free trip to a Raiders football game. Zanini said that Terrible’s has tracked an increase in spend and that the giveaways trend continuously year over year.
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