The challenge

GAS is investing in new technologies to modernise the customer experience and provide the speed, convenience and simplicity consumers increasingly demand. 

In late 2023, GAS started the process of replacing its long-standing loyalty scheme with a new programme. 

It’s third-party coalition loyalty provider – AA Smartfuel – had unexpectedly announced its closure, with the service ending on 31 January 2024. That meant GAS had only four months over the busy summer holiday season to exit AA Smartfuel and replace it with new programme. 

Nahid Ali, GAS General Manager, says that providing great customer experiences that drive growth throughout the fuel network was the priority. 

“With 28% of GAS’s sales volume going through the AA Smartfuel programme, we needed a compelling offering for these customers or risk losing them to the competition.”

A new loyalty strategy

GAS decided it needed its own solution as a platform for a complete view of customers and the ability to create more meaningful experiences via timely and relevant offers.  And to ensure future proofing, a platform with the flexibility to support addition of coalition schemes in future. 

Nahid says that a key goal for the new loyalty programme was to ensure they could continue to offer cents per litre discounting from 1 February 2024. 

“Kiwis are very motivated to make the trip to a fuel station when they know their loyalty will be rewarded with fuel discounts. They look forward to one-off ‘discount days’ when they can make real savings.  

“All the players in the fuel industry are offering discount-based campaigns. So, as a relatively small company, we didn't want to abandon this approach.” 

Nahid says a second key objective was to digitise the experience. “The new solution had to be delivered at point-of-sale and on our mobile app to lower the hurdle for customer adoption and make it fast and easy to use.” 

The solution

GAS considered a few loyalty platforms and selected Triquestra’s Infinity’s Loyalty module. 

GAS has partnered with Triquestra since 2020, using the Infinity unified commerce platform as its foundation for modernising the customer experience and managing point of sale transactions across 121 retail sites. 

“We have a very good relationship with Triquestra,” explains Nahid. “It’s a true partnership, and we are going from strength to strength. 

“In addition, Infinity Loyalty was exactly what we were looking for. It’s a mature platform with localised functionality and was the fastest and safest option for us to take.” 

The deployment was exceptionally quick says Nahid, taking only twelve weeks from contract to the launch of the new ‘Instant Discounts’ loyalty programme.  

“We held one initial meeting with the Triquestra team where I outlined what we faced and what we wanted to do,” explains Nahid.  

“The next thing I knew, Triquestra had taken us by the hand and led us through to the successful ‘go live’ on 1st of February. 

“It was remarkable. They did all the work to build the loyalty offering, integrate it with the app and deploy it by the go-live date,” Nahid says. “For an organisation to step up and deliver in such a short time is truly commendable.” 

Power of partnership

Nahid says Triquestra’s partnerships with leading fuel operators give the team a deep understanding of the fuel retail customer experience. 

“The Triquestra team have extensive fuel industry knowledge and experience, which was important for the success of the project. They knew what to do and they had people to help us plan and implement the project, swiftly. 

“Due to the tight timescales, the testing was completed in less than one week pre-launch. And the loyalty platform passed all the tests first time, which was just  brilliant.”  

Nahid recognises the risk that comes with global vendors with offshore or indirect models of support. 

“Being local is another big advantage Triquestra offers. We can reach out to them during our working hours, unlike the overseas multinationals working in different time zones. They even had their team available to us on a public holiday just three days before go-live.” 

“They are genuinely good people who care about our business and are always there to help. And when they say they're going to do something, they do it.”   

The impressive results  

Loyalty volumes surge

Nahid explains that the decision to partner with Triquestra has paid immediate dividends. 

“It's now the end of the first month with Instant Discounts and we have captured an amazing 98% of fuel transaction volumes of the previous loyalty system which ran for three and a half years.” 

“Our volume has been consistently in line with what we were doing with AA Smartfuel because the loyalty platform is so simple and easy to use.”  

Ownership of customer data

By reclaiming ownership of its customer data from all channels and touchpoints – ranging from fuel selections to convenience items within stores – GAS can now recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop. 

“Previously, all our customer data was held by AA Smartfuel, but it’s now captured directly in Infinity Loyalty,” says Nahid.  

“We’re getting to know our customers for the very first time in our 25 years of operation.” 

GAS is using the data to develop a distinctive customer experience and boost loyalty. “We’re now looking at how to attract and grow our repeat customers on a week-by-week basis.” 

Omnichannel customer experience

GAS now has an omnichannel loyalty solution that works with plastic cards in stores and the mobile app.  

“During the planning stages, we were only looking at using the mobile app as our virtual loyalty card,” explains Nahid. “However, Triquestra helped us to quickly get a plastic card up-and-running as well. Within a period of four weeks, we had our own loyalty card made with barcodes and integrated with Infinity Loyalty and the mobile app.” 

Nahid adds while customers are signing with the mobile app, the plastic card is still a popular option. “Customers love the app, but the physical card has been a roaring success as well.” 

Stable hub and platform for CX innovation

By choosing a partner with a mature platform with the ability to customise functionality, GAS can focus on personalising the CX because all the critical functionality they need already exists. 

“It's a much easier solution to administer, and yet has all the functionality of a more complicated coalition loyalty system like AA Smartfuel.” 

Nahid explains that unifying loyalty with the backend systems has given them a complete package within the one platform. And it’s a solution built for their fast-paced, data-intensive environment where any level of downtime is unacceptable. 

“It’s secure. It's fast. It's very reliable. With our loyalty engine now directly integrated with our point of sale, the chances of the Instant Discounts going down or not working are very slim.” 

Nahid concludes by saying GAS now has a loyalty solution that will adapt and evolve to future business needs. 

“We are very fortunate, and I give full credit to the Triquestra team for supporting a small business like ours. This is going very well for us.” 

Interested in how GAS only took 12 weeks to deploy and launch its new loyalty programme nationwide? Get in touch.

For more on how to modernise fuel retail loyalty and CX, check out our blog 👉   

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