The fuel card industry makes its profit (like many B2B markets) from apathy – customers having a lack of expertise and being too busy in their normal working day to manage the product or service.
Because of fuel card apathy users are all too often are paying more than the UK average pump price, and in some extreme cases, between 35-50 pence more. The two most common reasons we see for this are either a mis-placed trust in the fuel card supplier or customers being culpable due to a lack of management or knowledge.
But this isn’t always the case… so let’s take a look at how other companies have tried to find a way to guarantee long term sustainable savings whilst using a fuel card.
Invest Lots of Time
To keep your suppliers at their best, you need to know the movement in price of the fuel card market that week and then contact your account manager to review it, if they’re not following the market.
Remember it’s not the responsibility of a fuel card company to keep your prices low. It’s yours. They’ll quote you a price each week, and if you use your fuel cards, then in the fuel card supplier’s eyes you’re happy.
The sad part about this is you’ve taken on a fuel card to make life easier, but you’ll have to invest lots of time into it after you’ve got it, to keep it from turning from asset to liability.
Open Multiple Accounts with Multiple Suppliers
A number of the larger customers in the industry do this. There is nothing more powerful than to move your business from one supplier to another.
From experience, seeing volume disappear that you were expecting is a real kick in the teeth, and is usually a good way to get prices where you want them.
The big downside with this approach is the administration. For your drivers, it’s things like PINs and site acceptance. For your finance teams, who you’ve used and when, this can cause cash flow and supplier credit limit problems.
Regular Switching
You may have recently read our blog about why prospecting prices on an email from a fuel card company don’t count but if not, the crux of the article was that the best prices you’re likely to get from a fuel card company, if you don’t manage it closely, is in the first few months of trading with them.
You’ve only got to read a review site, like TrustPilot, to see reviews mentioning prices continually rising. So another way you can keep prices down is by continually switching supplier. Then wait 6 months, switch again.
Whilst this does keep prices down, having multiple accounts open, can be time consuming, and depending on your business type, not great for your credit status.
So What’s the Answer?
Well, we like to think Driving Down’s two fuel card services tackle these issues, so let’s look at them in turn.
Driving Down’s Switching Service
We’re the only player in the UK fuel card market that offers an auto-switching service, and with a little bit of information from you, we do all that for you. We then move you to one of our panel of suppliers, who are pre-vetted so we know every customer of Driving Down will get a good price from the outset and more importantly the long term
We’ll monitor your suppliers and if they’re not delivering what was promised, or their customer service takes a slide, then it’s simple… we bring you a new range of options and should you agree, we auto-switch you to someone else. You have all the control, we do all the work!
Driving Down will support you to buy better, freeing you up to concentrate on what you do best – running your business.
Driving Down’s Fuel Management Partner Service
As your Fuel Management Partner we price monitore and proactively manage your fuel card account and help you manage the deal and all other commercial elements (fuel card price, card charges, fees, surcharges etc) of your fuel card account with your existing supplier.
Simply send us a copy of your latest invoice and we will advise if you should be getting a better more honest package from your current provider. If you can, then you give us the authority to act on your behalf and then we get our 70 years’ of experience to work, on your businesses behalf.
The benefits to your business of this include:
- Free up your time to do what you do best, run your business.
- You don’t need to employ anyone to do this or rely on your accountant to spot something. Simply utilise our teams 70+ years’ of experience in fuel cards to your benefit.
- No other changes to your business practices / vehicles etc will be required.
- No need to switch supplier, unless they’re not willing to co-operate and look after your business.
Maybe Apathy is here to stay then?
So maybe we’re wrong… maybe you can be apathetic about your fuel cards again, but at least you’re safe in the knowledge that we’re going to be here keeping everything in check – find out more
