SA fuel stations earn praise for their quality of service

As a consumer, how happy are you with your customer experience when you visit a service station? According to a survey published this week by a leading market research company, it’s likely that you’re actually extremely happy.

Consulta, a Centurion-based consultancy that specialises in measuring customer satisfaction across a range of industries, found South Africans rate fuel stations very highly compared to the service that they receive from many other industries.

Fuel is all similar, so service is the key factor

This is presumably an indicator that the big fuel brands realise what Consulta also points out in its report: Motorists regard fuel as a ‘commodity’ – a situation where one fuel product is much the same as the competitors’ product.

And, given that prices are either the same or similar too, cost cannot be a differentiator between brands either.

Which leaves customer service on and around the forecourt – plus the associated amenities such as convenience stores, takeaway food outlets, restrooms, pet-care facilities and the like – as the only ways that brands can hope to take market share from their competitors.

No clear winner as to which brand is the best

According to Ineke Prinsloo, Head of Customer Insights at Consulta, there is no clear winner when it comes to one brand being better than the other.

“There is no outright leader in the customer satisfaction stakes, which leaves the field open for a brand to take the lead in providing a differentiated customer experience,” she says.

Engen (with a customer satisfaction score of 80.8) and Shell (a score of 80.3) lead by small margins. They are followed closely by BP (79.2) and Sasol (79.2).

So all pretty much on par. The only exception is Caltex, which comes in with a below-average score of 77.2.

The service we’re getting exceeds our expectations

Prinsloo enthuses about what she calls a positive Expectation-Quality gap. What that means is that service stations are generally exceeding customer expectations – what we’re getting from them as consumers is actually more than what we thought we would. Engen is best at exceeding those expectations.

And when there is a complaint from a customer, how well do the brands resolve them? It turns out that Sasol is the best here. It had the lowest number of complaints and was also the best as resolving the complaints that did come its way.

The field work for the study was conducted in the last quarter of 2019 and polled 1 600 service station customers.