Wilson Oil & Propane
Wilson Oil and Propane select Cargas and save more than
$250,000 annually.
Wilson Oil and Propane is a full service home comfort provider, specializing in heating, air conditioning and indoor air quality. Established in 1926 as a family-owned and operated business, they understand that nothing less than the best will do when it comes to the comfort of their customers’ homes. Located in southeast Pennsylvania, they are no strangers to providing warmth during the coldest of winters and relief in the hottest of summers. Securing the comfort of friends and neighbors is a huge responsibility, but it’s one they are pleased to shoulder. For more than 70 years, Wilson Oil and Propane has set themselves apart from competition with unparalleled dedication to quality, affordability, reliability and their commitment to community.
The Challenge
Wilson Oil and Propane was growing, causing their business processes to expand. To support this upward trend, they needed to streamline delivery and service operations and better manage customer service and accounting functions. Many of their procedures were paper-based and manual. Efforts were often duplicated to keep multiple departments informed. Even with the best of intentions, drivers, dispatchers, service and accounting teams were isolated in their roles. No one had sufficient insight into the customer experience or visibility into key decision making data. Wilson Oil and Propane strives to provide superior service, but their disparate, aging systems were hampering their efforts. One of the areas Wilson Oil and Propane identified as a top priority was streamlining the delivery and service department’s hourlong, labor-intensive morning dispatch routines. Dispatchers from delivery and service were tasked with manually reviewing tickets and work orders to categorize customers in need of a fuel delivery or a service call. Then the paper tickets and work orders were ranked by priority and sorted by zones. Finally, delivery drivers and service technicians would retrieve their paperwork and prepare their own route mapping for the day. Wilson Oil and Propane wanted to eliminate this process and give their delivery drivers and service technicians the organized schedule they needed to be more profitable and customer centric.
“We looked at almost everyone out there. At the end of the day, Cargas was just plain better. They offered features that weren’t available on any other system and their team of employee-owners were just as impressive. They really have it together for this industry”, says David O’Connell, President of Wilson Oil and Propane. “Cargas knows the Energy industry well and knows how to build solutions that can rapidly adapt to the constant changes in our business. The use of web-based and mobile technology allows us to maximize productivity with a minimal amount of staff. The Cargas energy solution integrated with Microsoft Dynamics GP helps us to significantly reduce our manual efforts to optimize deliveries, capture service calls, post transactions and create financial statements. The Cargas team and their approach to solving business problems is by far the best in the business,” adds O’Connell.
The Benefits
Delivery Operations are now well organized, and drivershave the right tools to quickly optimize their daily routes. Mobile handheld devices keep them informed and connected to the back office. Fully automated paperless processes afford drivers an additional two hours every day to focus on deliveries. In response to fluctuating oil prices, the system is set up to alert drivers electronically of real time price changes, resulting in billing accuracy and reducing costly undercharges. With streamlined route planning, drivers have the ability to quickly respond to will call and emergency deliveries without having to manually reorganize their routes. Full integration to UPS Logistics enables the system’s advanced route planning to produce the most efficient course for drivers, complete with mapping and directions. In the event of an emergency delivery, customer service dispatches the nearest driver and the system automatically adjusts the driver’s path to maintain the most economic route. Cost savings are experienced in decreased fuel usage by eliminating unnecessary miles driven.
Customer Service is empowered with data and far more prepared to manage inbound and outbound calls. Customer information is accessible in a real time, centralized dashboard. Nearly 100% of the information needed to address calls can be accessed from one screen. Representatives have been able to increase their productivity by 50% with the new system views by spending less time per call. Customers benefit from feeling secure in their provider’s efficiency. In an industry where it is difficult to compete on price, Wilson Oil and Propane has been able to successfully offer differentiation with their proactive approachand superior service. With the right information at their fingertips, customer service has been able to detect the risk of run outs and overlooked service appointments before they occur, further increasing customer loyalty.
Service and Maintenance is another key area that has experienced large efficiency gains. Previously, Wilson Oil and Propane’s manual service scheduling process was cumbersome and inconsistent. Technicians couldn’t be dispatched by zone or priority. Now, Cargas Energy has completely automated the process. All planned and unplanned appointments are entered into the system, a work order is automatically produced, and an electronic dispatch board based on priority is updated. The system’s intuitive user interface allows administrative staff to view information in a neat, color-coded calendar sorted by zone match, priority and technician availability. With all of the necessary information available in an easy-to-use, one screen view, appointments are easily scheduled. Service technicians are electronically notified of their daily agendas via mobile handheld devices. While in the field, technicians have access to complete customer account information, including history. When a service call is complete, technicians simply update the work order status on site, obtain the customer’s electronic signature and print an invoice. The transaction is then transmitted to the back office system for billing. Automation of the planning, scheduling and dispatch processes has eliminated the need for two positions previously responsible for these functions.
Accounting functions and processes have become streamlined and integrated, and in some cases altogether eliminated. With over 75% of Wilson Oil and Propane’s customers on a monthly credit card payment schedule, the old billing process required manual entry of data in an antiquated terminal and three days of processing. Cargas Energy’s automated functionality has reduced this process to three minutes. For many customers, the distribution of monthly statements is executed from the system via email, eliminating unnecessary materials, cost and labor. Enhanced reporting capabilities and proactive collections management have resulted in improved cash flow and the reduction of potential credit risks. Wilson Oil and Propane has the ability to easily generate reports to identify on-hold and outstanding accounts. Sensitive collection letters can be customized and automatically generated by the system in a professional format with the users signature attached and ready to print or email. The former process consisted of internal meetings to wade through handwritten notes and manually analyzing paper-based reports. Limited by character count and unprofessional printing, collection letters were often difficult to produce in the past.
Sales Representatives have also benefited from the integrated solution and centralized information. Through the use of mobile technology, technicians in the field are able to update the system with cross sell opportunities as they arise. Wilson Oil and Propane’s manual process of filtering leads to the sales department has been replaced with full automation and access to critical prospect information, reducing missed opportunities.
The Bottom Line
Through the use of Cargas Energy, Cargas Mobile and Microsoft Dynamics GP financials, Wilson Oil and Propane conservatively reports up to $250,000 in savings per year. “The Cargas team has exceeded our expectations on many fronts. They offer outstanding support and provided us with the smoothest implementation I’ve ever seen. They have a natural ability to understand our strategic needs and convert them into system functionality,” concludes David O’Connell.
