Industry overview
What is shaping petroleum, oil & gas
Oil marketing companies, lubricant brands and city gas distributors compete on forecourt experience, product trust and mechanic recommendations.
- Forecourt experience shapes fuel brand loyalty
- Mechanics drive lubricant brand choice
- City gas adoption depends on safety confidence and convenience
Client background
A fuel retailer, working in South Africa. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- A fuel retailer
- Sector
- Petroleum, oil & gas
- Team engaged
- IT & Development
- Services
- Mobile app development, Marketing automation, Data analytics & dashboards
Client challenge
The retailer’s plastic loyalty card was rarely used, and it had little data on customer visits or convenience store purchases. Competitors had launched digital loyalty programmes, and the retailer risked losing frequent customers.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: building a loyalty app for fuel station customers.
- Design around the real needs of stations.
- Define requirements and success criteria the solution would be tested against.
- Deliver a reliable, secure solution the team can run and extend.
Target audience
The work focused on 300 stations.
- stations300
Audiences we typically reach in petroleum, oil & gas
Fuel customersForecourt staff and dealersMechanics and workshopsFleet ownersCity gas customers
Geographic coverage
Coverage: South Africa. Market: South Africa.
- South Africa
Research methodology
An iterative delivery approach: discovery, design, build and test in short cycles, with the client reviewing each step.
- 1Brief
- 2Customer research
- 3Loyalty app
- 4Programme dashboard
- 5Insight
We interviewed customers about loyalty habits and built an app with digital points, fuel price alerts and convenience store offers, integrated with station systems and a programme dashboard. The app was tested with customers at pilot stations before national rollout, and attendants were trained to help customers sign up.
Mobile app developmentMarketing automationData analytics & dashboards
Sampling strategy
- stations
- 300
- Users and stakeholders from every affected team took part in discovery workshops and acceptance testing.
Data collection
- Requirements were gathered through workshops, process walk-throughs and a review of existing systems and data.
Data quality & validation
- Peer code review on every change
- Automated and manual testing
- User-acceptance testing with the client
- Release checklist and rollback plan
Data analysis
- Usage and performance monitoring after launch
- Defect and support-ticket trends
- Process time before and after
Key findings
- App adoption grew steadily, and the retailer could see visit frequency and convenience store cross-purchases for the first time.
- Station managers also used dashboard data to plan promotions at quieter times.
Personalised offers drove more engagement than generic points.
Recommendations
- Build on the core insight: personalised offers drove more engagement than generic points.
- Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: app adoption grew steadily, and the retailer could see visit frequency and convenience store cross-purchases for the first time.
Business impact
- Convenience store sales grew at stations with high app usage.
Deliverables & next steps
- Interactive dashboard
- Deployed solution with documentation and handover
- Support and maintenance plan
- Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
- A natural follow-on question: are outlets following service standards?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.