Customer Journey: How I wish Shell had treated me (tragic ending)

More than two years ago, I signed up for a fuel card from the Dutch oil group. I had originally applied with one of their competitors, but the process of becoming a customer and making payments seemed so complex that I ended up with Shell.

In a few days, I become a customer, I receive the card at my home, the service is not too complicated, ... but no relationship with the brand but a lot of "technical" emails:

With an average of 4 purely technical emails per month for two years, I didn't open many during this period.

A few weeks ago, I received a letter giving me notice to pay an unpaid bill and asking me to return my card by mail. It seems that I have been excluded, I am no longer a customer, I do not understand why. In this letter, I am told that, following several unanswered reminders, this is the last letter from them before they hand over to their lawyers. Since the payments are automatic, I had not noticed that one was missing at all. As a customer who has never missed a bill in two years, I feel ... rather frustrated by the experience.

I didn't receive any mail before the formal notice! So, I go to my email box, and indeed, two weeks earlier an email arrived, classified as a promotion:

Sender: Belux-credit
Subject: Customer Dunning Shell {Customer Number}

So not only am I no longer a customer (because they consider me a bad payer after an unpaid bill) but the brand has drastically fallen in my esteem.

I was a loyal customer, now I am a frustrated ex-customer!

How could Shell have turned me into an ambassador and avoided losing a customer?

Seeing me as a customer, who has value, and not just as a temporary source of income would probably have been the solution, but there are more important principles. Shell's main problem is that a good intention, the dematerialization of their billing/payment processes, has not been accompanied by a reflection on the customer experience.

That famous "customer relaunch", which is the reason for losing a customer, went completely off my radar because Shell wasn't able to keep me engaged with their emails (not to mention the sender identification is a bit strange).

Another element is that the service is aimed at very diverse audiences. In the service set up by Shell, one quickly realizes that the different tools (portal, billing management, ...) are mainly dedicated to "fleet managers" with a fleet of cars ranging from a dozen to several hundred. However, a significant number of users of the service must be self-employed (this was my case) and many other profiles are possible (e.g. truckers, private individuals, taximen, ...). In the examples below, we will work on a freelance/individual profile.

Let's take things in order!

Welcome Program

It is certainly the most important step, to be welcomed as it should be. A group like Shell has the chance to have a very rich service, points of sale everywhere in Europe (and elsewhere), the possibility of cross-selling with other services offered in the stations, having a main product available in self-service, ...

The first step should inevitably be the confirmation of the registration (I didn't take the time to model the process of receiving and activating the gas card), but this is not the most important. The most important thing is the description of all the benefits and other services offered by the card: Where is it valid? What services can be paid with it besides gasoline (tolls, carwash, ...)? Special discount for cardholders, ...

Another role of your welcome program is to introduce future loyalty to your other messages and channels. In Shell's case, one would be tempted to remember two points:

1. Submit monthly reports to be sent to the client (see below)
2. As we are in a business that has a huge need for geolocation ("Where is the nearest gas station?"), pushing the brand's mobile application will probably be well accepted. The mobile application will also be an additional way to contact customers via push notifications. Moreover, another channel than email can be used to push a mobile application efficiently ... the sms!

It is not necessary to concentrate all these points in one email. As the new customer's attention is important, it is quite possible to spread these different elements in a cycle of several emails in order to focus on one message at a time.

Monthly reports

If there's one thing consumers love, it's emails that speak for themselves! Send an email with the number of loyalty points accumulated by your customers, on their purchase history, on ... you will have all the chances to attract their attention.

On the other hand, be careful with the frequency. An email of this type every week will be read less than an email every month, you must not get bored.

In the framework of Shell, we will retain a monthly report in order to retain the customers, it is an appointment which will become important for them. What will we put in it? Here is the list of the elements which could appear there:

1. The fuel consumption of the month: whether it is expressed in liters or in euros, this is the very reason for the report. This information will naturally lead to a landing page with a more detailed report, access to invoices, ...
2. A comparison with previous months' consumption: Without getting into Green Washing (which could be frowned upon here), indicators on energy consumption are becoming increasingly important to consumers.
3. Service messages: For example, about possible unpaid invoices, about the opening of a new point of sale nearby, about new services, etc.
4. Commercial loyalty messages: Partner offers (as long as the link is strong and does not take up all the space), actions related to events, tips and tricks related to the world of cars or travel, ...

All the information available in this report sent by email can necessarily also be found in the brand's mobile application. This is the era of digital messaging, which is able to go beyond the medium used. The service and commercial messages sent by email can also be visible on the brand's portal, in the mobile application, etc.

This is a far cry from the sadly technical emails that have been sent for two years by Shell and which have not caught my attention at all.

Payment reminders

As we have seen in the reports, it is already possible to push the information of late payment via digital messaging. But it is obvious that more needs to be done and that ... gradually, the tone must be raised.

Start 15 days after receiving the last monthly report:

The very first step is to spend as little money as possible to get paid. For that, we will use the traditional eCRM channels to send an alert message, by email, by SMS, but also by push notification if it is possible and if we have succeeded during the welcome (and also afterwards) to generalize the use of the mobile application. The notion of alert is important, there is an emergency, but no one is threatened at this stage.

Then, we go through a medium whose rate of deliverability and attention remains important, the postal mail. Again, we are not yet in the formal notice. It is perhaps the first time that the consumer realizes that he has not paid. On the other hand, a letter, in paper, it is imposing! Dematerialization is one thing, but it is unavoidable to use paper at certain stages of a customer's life (and not only to push unpleasant messages).

If the various actions have not yet borne fruit (but this should be the case for the vast majority of the "distracted"), we move on to serious matters. For good customers (good payers, large volumes, ...) we try a phone call to understand the situation of the customer. And if it still doesn't work (or if the customer is not worth it ... but in principle they are all worth it) we move on to the formal notice and other more muscular actions.

Conclusion

I haven't covered the whole subject, but these three points would probably have been enough to avoid the disappointment I experienced as a customer. Keeping an existing customer will always cost less than finding new ones! And email, helped by the other eCRM mediums, has a central place in this type of strategy.

The act of buying should never be the end of the journey, it is only the beginning of a new journey to keep this customer, to make him happy, to make him an ambassador, ... think about it!