Customer experience and gas prices

I choose by trust first, price second. Although, with gas stations, I 'trust' most any national chain, and for some reason, tend to avoid the smaller branded stations. The WaWa stations are my favorite though. Price is a very close second in this equation though. Its just gas.

I believe that negative brand image has a greater impact on gasoline/energy brands than positive. I may choose *not* to use a brand because of some action or behavior, but rarely do I choose a gasoline brand for their brand marque or tag line.

There is value in being recognized as a major brand - though gasoline is gasoline is gasoline and someone adding muck to their mix wouldn't last long in business. But a modicom of trust is better than none.

And I do admire BPs re-brand from enormous evil destructive corporation to hippy happy hoppy 'we are looking out for you, the planet, and the future' corporation. So perhaps the younger consumers won't choose against the BP brand, though those old enough to remember *before* - I'd rather not, unless, of course, they are closest, cheapest, or both!

I always buy gas at the gas station located en route to work, on the correct side of the road, which happens to be Esso. it is one of two, but the other one is on the opposide of the highway (cross 4 lanes), so inaccessible when going to work. the two of them align their price twice a day, so fill-up is either Monday or Thursday when, for some unknown reason, the price drops. until i can change to a hybrid car, i really don't care about the brand.

I always buy gas at the gas station located en route to work, on the correct side of the road, which happens to be Esso. it is one of two, but the other one is on the opposide of the highway (cross 4 lanes), so inaccessible when going to work. the two of them align their price twice a day, so fill-up is either Monday or Thursday when, for some unknown reason, the price drops. until i can change to a hybrid car, i really don't care about the brand.

I always buy gas at Citgo, because it's the least evil of all the gas companies.

However, if I have to buy gas somewhere else and pull up to find I can't pay at the pump (for whatever reason) I will get back in my car and drive down the block until I find a station that has pay-at-the-pump. I have had enough sketchy interactions with skeevy gas station attendants in my lifetime -- I've reached my quota.

I used to go to a BP gas station because of its "environmental" branding message. My local BP station became a Conoco or something, so now I'm not loyal to that gas station any more. I used to be loyal to the location because of the brand, but now I'll go anywhere that's convenient.

For me, it's a combination of factors. I will only fill up if it's convenient to get in and out. There's not much price differences in my area, they all seem to be within a penny/gallon of each other. (could be that so many in one area exerts a strong pressure to keep prices as low as possible, or they all watch each other like a hawk and one move by one causes all the others to move as well) But customer experience is also a strong force. (surprise, surprise) I actually do like the BP station because it is clean, well-lit, easy to drive around the pumps (enough room), and has a nice shop if needed. The logo itself affects me much less than the overall appearance, location and experience I have at the station. But I do agree with Karen H. that negative brand image is more powerful than positive. I won't stop at the Exxon which is right on the corner and easy to visit on the way to work. It helps that the place is dirty and unkempt which just reenforces the negative corporate image. It's the small things that can really make the difference.

When it comes to gasoline, I could care less about corporate brand image, clean bathrooms or a well-stocked quick-mart. I go for the cheapest gasoline I can find. If it's at ghetto-gas-and-run, then I go there. As a matter of fact, I LAUGH at the people across the street paying 20¢, 30¢, 50¢ more per gallon JUST for their brand loyalty. When it REALLY comes down to it, the gas goes in the tank, through the fuel system, into the engine, explodes and makes my original-owner, 16 year-old, economy car go. That is when I am not riding my bicycle and laughing at the fact that I don't HAVE to buy gasoline and rely on my giant steel cage. Hands up: who commuted in a single-passenger automobile less than ten miles today? Shame on you!

p.s. what the f-word is with this 9/10¢ business?! You want to talk about usability and good experience? Lets talk about that one for a while.

A few thoughts on this column:
--- Do you really think NYC cab drivers, most of whom are barely English-literate, are choosing where to buy gas based on handsomely-designed ads in the NYTimes? Or on the sophistication of an oil company's branding and corporate identity?
--- Of the many products we consume, I'd venture a guess that gas is among the ones for which good design is a total non-factor. Convenience and price drive gas sales.
--- Or, in my case, whatever isn't Exxon/Mobil, a company that's as close to Satan as one can be. Too bad, too, because that little Mobil Speedpass is a great, consumer-friendly invention.

There are volumes of research reports sitting on shelves in the marketing department of fuel retailers. These reports come to the same conclusions: Location and price are the dominant purchase decision-makers. In fact, there are a number of studies indicating just how wide consumer loyalty is when it comes to gas stations...it's about 0.3 cents. In addition, many companies have toyed with and made successful 'second brands' to play on the illusion that they are 'little guys'...is that branding? :-)

I generally agree with the thought behind this (of course I do, I'm a UX guy) but your dig on BP seems to lie with the consultant's definition of the "brand promise". Building a brand includes the entire experience - which includes determining which locations will be profitable, how the gas stations should be laid out, how frequently the bathrooms are cleaned, who you hire, the quality of the product you provide and the price you provide it at. Just saying that the "stupid" marketing execs should be focused on price and location and bathroom cleanliness makes it sound like that would be a new idea to a successful organization like BP. They wouldn't be in the competitive position they are today if they didn't have that holistic view of what a gas station is, where it should be placed and and what the experience of using their stores is like.

And no, I don't work at BP but as a consumer, but I do have a very clear image of what a BP station is like in my head - clean, convenient, afforable gas with good lighting at night. When I see a BP logo those are the experiences I think of. But that experience vision has been carefully planned (presumably) by a host of people thinking about how to craft that image through store planning, hiring, environmental design and (*gasp*) marketing.

With BP, it could also be fuel quality. That's why I prefer BP - having hard data from the fuel delivery industry that BP is the only producer that insists on using its own gas in the pipelines - the others (even Shell) use whatever generic gas gets piped up from Texas and they add a few gallons of additive per tank truck. I learned this in user experience research with people in the industry. Insiders, like taxi drivers, may know this as well and use Amoco for better performance and mileage. I am serious about this, product quality counts.

Don't discount the brand though. We would not even consider BP if they did not do work on the brand. The fuel quality is part of the brand promise. It means their customer service cab be trusted, to some extent anyway. You can shame a firm if they do not stand by their brand promise.

Being observant people, we have noticed (through the course of owning and fueling and number of different cars, of different makes and models), that a particular car will exhibit the best performance with a particular brand of gasoline. This varies from car to car. When beginning with a "new" car, we start with the brand that has provided the best performance in the previous car, and experiment from there. We have found that, universally, some brands of gas provide poor performance, no matter which make and model of car we have. We have also noticed that some brands of gas provide good performance across the spectrum of car make & model. So, yes, we do look for a specific brand of gas first, and then go down our list of preferred brands for the particular car we are driving. Marketing means nothing to us. Performance history in our vehicles means everything to us.

"When I walked by that gas station last week I was tempted to ask the cab drivers why they were all fueling up there."

Um... I see one car in this photo, and it doesn't look like a cab.

I was even more suprised by the BP logo on the inside of my Ford Freestar gas cap reading something to the effect: "Ford recommends BP".

How much did BP pay Ford for the "Gas cap sponsorship". It seems to be a great context, but I doubt it would ever change behavior.

I have to take exception with the statement: "Or perhaps one station has better bathrooms; or a better-stocked quick-mart; or a personalized pass system to pay more quickly. All of these are improvements to the customer experience - not part of a traditional marketing strategy." Anyone in "traditional marketing" that doesn't consider ALL of these elements part of marketing is foolish. Improving the customer experience IS part of the role of Marketing. Otherwise, you're correct, the brand promise is an ivory tower intellectual excercise. But, any marketing worth his/her salt knows that the client perception is a big part of the brand and that the client perception is a function of every touch point with that consumer. In the case of BP, it's the cleanliness, location, price, etc...

Did I miss something? Your photo shows a BP station but how would one know? Maybe there's a tall freestanding sign out of frame. Isn't it interesting that at architectural eye level theres no way to know the name of the station.

After the hurricane, the most expensive gas here was BP, so much for public relations & marketing... I won't go back if I don't have to.

I purchase gas at a small, locally owned oil & gas company called Laurelhurst Oil here in Seattle (www.laurelhurstoil.com -- they have a great logo and minimalist 70s-era "vintage" pumps, too). Laurelhurst is one of the few gas stations offering BioDiesel in my area. Although their unleaded prices are about $.05 higher than the chains, I'd rather support their business and keep BioDiesel available to Seattlites than worry about a few extra dollars. I like to think of it as punk gas.

There is another aspect we haven't touched on, and that is this: Am I buying the company's product, or their stock? If it's their product, then the customer experience (of both buying and using the product) is paramount. If it's their stock, the branding and the mission statement and all that become more important. If the two are out of sync, I'm less likely to buy either their stock or their product.

My studio is right around the corner from that gas station (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's across from Puck building, on the corner of Houston and Lafayette), which has only earlier this year been converted to a BP station.

Cab drivers have been going there before it was owned by BP. I've never asked cab drivers why, but I always see a ton in the morning on the way to work... I've always thought its popularity has to do with its location and size (you can fit a lot of taxis in that lot). I've never noticed what brand the old gas station was.

As for what brand to use... I'm cynical and do not believe for one second any oil company would care for the environment. And as much as I enjoy the marketing/lies strategy behind BP, I wouldn't choose it over any others.

I don't own a car and try to use public transportation when I can't just walk... That BioDiesel company sounds interesting... If I drive and live near one, I think I'd also pay a little extra for them.

Is it any wonder that the "top down" approach is so common for brands? After all, the people in charge of branding for these companies all got their training when there were only three television networks, no internet, no e-mail, text messaging, cell phones, IM, TiVo, etc. They still believe that a logo has inherent meaning and magic. They don't understand all the ways people have to engage or ignore a brand and expect new media to do the job of old media. To them there is only one valid experience and for the most part it is unimportant whether it's good for us or not...

I vote location and price (if that wasn't obvious). Sorry for the rant.

What a pretentious piece of crap! Geez, BP is going to take this column now as proof of its effectiveness of branding. Puh-leaze. As Sue says, and any New Yorker knows, those taxi drivers aren't being brand loyal! At least, not to BP. They may be community loyal (the station a place to mingle with other drivers) and certainly on their salaries must br price-loyal. But loyal to BP brand! Come on. Stop wasting my time.

have a look at: http://www.communication.org.au/dsblog/?p=8

Hi Mark!
I didn't see too many cars in that gas station so I'm not sure about the marketing of BP??? Out here in California, the prices are high and the stations usually have several cars waiting if the gas is priced right. I shop for price and convenience-and do not care about brand name except I do not shop at Exxon/Mobil. I do not care about the quik-mart or the bathrooms either. I usually get gas at Costco!
Thank you for all the interesting tidbits!
Helen Moriarty

Mark's article is right on the mark (no pun intended). But to play devil's advocate, there is something to be said for the concept that logo and brand promise can sometimes draw consumers to make the purchase.

If we consider that an entity's brand is its reputation, then there are in fact times when peoples' choices will be guided by the entity's reputation (reputation = brand promise). The country of France and all things French come to mind -- even though they've certainly been vindicated. Back in 2002, France's "brand" among a lot of Americans fell six feet under. It didn't matter how good French clothing, wines and cheeses are, a lot of people didn't buy them simply because they were branded: "Made in France." Remember Freedom Fries?

How about the disaster that occurred when Coca-Cola changed its recipe and the public decimated the company and its reputation? A consistent brand promise is so important that if the company breaks it, people will break the company. This was a powerful example of consumption being driven by the brand promise, or in this case, lack of consumption for breaking the promise.

An entity's reputation, and therefore its brand, can also be influenced by peoples' personal experiences. After a recent purchase, I had a distasteful experience with Saks Fifth Avenue's fulfillment process that reversed in one instant a lifetime of respect I had for that store. I won't ever buy a thing from Saks again. In my case, the Saks brand equates to a lack of integrity. Not quite what the executives had in mind when they established their post-purchase fulfillment system.

As these two instances demonstrate, therefore, the brand and its promise (or breaking the promise) *can* impact the sale.

However, executives don't really make the brand, even though there appear to be many who think they do. Ultimately, a company's brand is created by consumers. Executives who properly understand the branding process implement their strategies to position the company (and its products and services) in a way that they think will persuade the public to believe that what they say is true. And because strategic brand positioning does not deal in reality, that's why we hear things like, Budweiser, the King of Beers. Budweiser beer is like badly flavored water when compared to other brands, but they occupied that "king" space, and convinced millions of 20-somethings that they are indeed the beer to buy, bar none. All those 20-somethings made the brand a reality.

So while all those taxi cabs most likely went to BP for the location and price, there could conceivably be some who *are* there for BP's brand promise -- whatever that promise is to them -- or because BP has a reputation for environmental friendliness (don't know if BP actually is, but it doesn't matter because to some customers, that may be the case and that's enough), or philanthropic works, or even just because that's the fuel their parents purchased when they were youngsters. They see the green and gold logo, and drive right in just like their parents did.

I buy Downy dish detergent because that's what my mother used. The brand promise through my mother -- who died years ago! In my case, my purchasing choice has little to do with the executives' strategies, but they did manage to persuade my mother and so far, they haven't done anything to change my mind that my mother was right.

Carmen

Which "Gas" station do I use and is branding important? I use whatever one I'm passing when I need "gas" (we call it petrol here in Australia and it's called a petrol station) and that one looks just like the BP ones in Australia and if I was low on "gas" I'd pull in. In fact I often use a BP but only 'cause its on the way to work and next to a place where I buy breakfast occasionally.
I don't use the same criteria though for choosing which clothes or sneakers I buy! Then brand is important. And I'd travel across town for that "brand". I guess not all goods are the same.

I purchase my gasoline at a hole-in-the-wall that gives a discount of $0.04/litre. When the price is $1.095/litre, any break is welcome.

I am a true negative branding person when it comes to fuel. I choose to never shop at Exxon/Mobil because of the years of bogus science they have funded re global warming and environmental damage. I also don't shop at no name brands because, they are not held to the same standards of polution control as the name brands are? Why? The newspapers don't pay as much attention to no name as they do to Names!

Buy at the brands, save the planet!

I too agree that negative brand image is more powerful than positive. Much more powerful. For instance, I still continue to "punish" BP for their evil deeds of the past and I think I'll probably continue to do so forever. Branding is something I'm opposed to on principle anyway so I stay miles away from any company's product when that company invests millions on their image.

Mark--

In general, I agree with you, of course--bottom up beats top-down every time. But I wonder if BP is the best example to use to make the argument. I actually go out of my way to visit BP stations because of their stand on alternative energy (and to set an example for my son where socially responsible purchasing is concerned). I'm not naive--I know they're still doing plenty of bad things in the world, but I figure they're at least trying to appear to be the best of a bad lot, and if they see an uptick in share associated with their new approach, at a minimum some of the others may be compelled to follow suit, at which point I and others can sell our loyalty to the highest bidder (in terms of actual alternative energy commitment), rather than looking like suckers for BP's palaver. Pathetic, I know, but what else can we do if we have to buy gas? As for the brand identity itself, for consumers who are less sophisticated (like children whose parents are trying to educate them on social responsibility), you have to admit the new logo and colors really reinforce the alternative energy message--go to "the green gas station" (in most places, it's the only gas station with these colors--and even where there are competitors, I believe it's the only one with spring/renewal greens). I think it's also tough to beat up BP too much for the actual customer experience on the ground since, if I'm not mistaken, the franchisees of a gas station have a lot more discretion than, say, McDonald's franchisees do (i.e. how much control can BP really exert over what we would define as the customer experience than they do?) Still, what I wonder most of all is whether the BP guy at the conference really knew what he was talking about with respect to his claim that the whole BP strategy came from on high from the genius of executives--sounds like a lot of self-serving self-promotion to me. Hard to believe that a lot of research at the roots didn't have at least something to do with a strategic decision that was so far out of line with the rest of the industry at the time.

Mark
As someone who has marvelled at the low prices that you Americans have had to pay for petrol/gas I have to say from over the pond, we are at last having some small sense of schadenfreude at your petrol prices rising.
Your country has benefited from the complicated eco-political structures that surround this industry and now you're paying the price in ecological degradation for your corporations stranglehold on the black gold.
Remember here in Scotland, we are an oil producer too but the then government chose to fund a massive deindustrialisation of the British Isles with North Sea Oil revenues instead of ploughing it into renewable energies.
The use of wave, geo-thermals and solar technolgies have been held back too long in favour of the pollutants and the dangerous (oil, coal and nuclear)
We need to conserve and we need to think globally - we need no more slaughter in the streets of Iraq and no more polar ice-cap melting -
Get with the programme and we may survive!

BTW I get my petrol at the supermarket as it attracts other benefits - airmiles - so I can contribute to global warming too :0D

BP is a very large company with a very large number of consultants that obviously use very different strategies in "building a brand". In his book "Customer Experience Management", Bernd H. Schmitt showcases BP Connect as a premium example of bottom-up/top-down approach to achieve a market-winning customer experience. The customer centred approach led to a concept that positioned BP Connect gas stations perfectly for their target's groups needs and behavior - winning market shares not only from competitor oil-companies but also from supermarkets and drugstores.

Keep On keep'n On Mark-

In todays oil driven economy I found a simple tactic to assist me in my purchasing habits regarding fuel.

I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil :

Shell............. 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco.....144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil.......130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway..117,740,000 barrels
Amoco...............62,231,000 barrels

If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! We're now at $53+ a barrel.

--

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:

Citgo..................0 barrels
Sunoco.................0 barrels
Conoco.................0 barrels
Sinclair...............0 barrels
BP/Phillips............0 barrels
Hess...................0 barrels
ARCO...................0 barrels

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

Now just think if the executives tapped into the consumers mind set regarding US consumers thoughts about oil importation and consumption.

Cheers,
Richard

Clarifying the differences between top down and bottom up... I think is the wrong way of looking at the situation. As games are based on rules, clarity is based on a common language or words used to define a situation. I think your descriptions are too narrow and counterproductive to what we're all setting out to achieve.

Its really about "Communicating Value" and "Delivering Value". Or more simply said, saying and doing.

Without clear communication, there will be little awareness of what makes a brand special. Without a good experience, there will be little validation of what was promised as well as not much to remember "why" you'd go back.

If a business can develop a tight link between what they say (communicating value), and what they do (delivering value), they tend to be a healthier organization.

Looking at it horizontally tends to encourage problem solving and solution oriented discussions, versus vertically which tends to spawn organizational cat fights.

The challenge is when companies have an unclear value proposition that discriminates them from the pack - and the actual experience falls out of integrity with the aforementioned unclear value prop.

The sharper the position, the more definitive the result...

If you did a study on this, you'd probably find that customers who can articulate a companies value proposition in their own words (not the company jargon or slogans) indicates who's doing and saying the right thing, clearly and simply.

To this other person's endorsement of BP, I think they're spot on, but left out the other factors which you graciously included to complete the picture.

Pillar one, if you can't manage your own design assets, odds are you can't manage continuity of an overall experience. Step 1, get your message straight - and consistent. Step 2, calibrate your promise along a time continuum of how people engage with a business/brand. Step 3, pick and nurture the experiences that are deemed most meaningful - abort the ones that deliver no value.

Cheers all. Good topic.

I explicitly choose BP over Exxon/Mobil (reversing 30 years of buying almost exclusively at Mobil) because BP stands explicitly for green and a better envirnonment and Exxon doesn't give a hoot--they have led the effort to open the Alaska Wildlife Refuge to exploitation.

So yes, brand does mean a lot to me.

From what I remember of my days in Manhattan, that station is incredibly convenient and can cut significant time off of a gas-buying expedition. If you're a cab heading down the center of the city, that's your best option, so I'd guess that's why cabbies frequent that particular locale.

Personally, I now avoid Exxon/Mobil for environmental reasons, and am in fact inclined towards BP because they are making an effort, at least on the surface, to be more socially responsible. Looks like the branding might be working for me.

Mark's passionate call to arms recalled my own reasons for moving downstream from corporate branding a year ago.

Developing a promise, and aligning the organisation and then the market with it are important (and on the projects I worked on we rarely tried to put the promise into the market in the language that it had been written in for internal consumption - we wanted to try and 'trigger the thought' amongst people instead.)

But our primary client was the executive suite, and often in balancing their agendas, we lost sight of the consumer.

I found that the more exciting part of the process was taking a promise, and trying to interpret it: what does 'beyond petroleum' mean in terms of the way that a client behaves, the products offered, the way services are organised. It's not a discipline that traditional brand agencies, let alone ad agencies, are well placed to think about and deliver.

In a way that executive was right: you do have to take the promise and deliver it consistently through all channels. But Mark is right too: the definition of what are considered as 'channels' have to be widened.

It's not just about delivering the promise through communication touchpoints - it's about delivering it through all touchpoints.

Brand managers, and now their architects, seem to feel that the "brand" is the logo and its colors, and cannot resist the impulse to coat everything with it. For me, a valid brand has more value, and has more to say through its behaviors than through its graphics.

For example, in Good Experience's BP illustration I see:

* A good, expressive logo--BP's sunburst, which I had begun to associate with some corporate sustainability and energy responsibility--diluted by having its colors extracted from the symbol and spread over everything, reducing the identity of the company and suppressing the cleverness of its logo.
* A corporate standard that screams me, me, me, and shows no respect for the context of the neighborhood in which it sits, and certainly contributes nothing to its architectural, social and economic sustainability.
* A property development standard that has only one value---the automobile---and spreads a concrete pad over everything, competing with pedestrians , and contributing nothing to the quality of life or quality of environment in the neighborhood.
* Those damned underhung exposed fixtures that blast the property with light, and pollute the entire neighborhood with glare. Consider living or working next door to this place. (Are you like me? Whenever I see a place blasted with light--apparently a security response--I feel less secure.)
* Those dumpsters at the front door--how do they contribute to the customer experience? How do they contribute to the neighborhood's environmental quality? Why haven't they been shielded...and picked up? What about that banner over them (advertising pollution) and the care of the property owner? Why doesn't the supposed executive/corporate interest in brand expression extend to management standards for station owner/operators? Why doesn't a company, claiming responsibility for the environment, respect the environments where it places its stations?
* Those pump stands--a great opportunity for an integrated design approach, but instead a dissonant collection of pump, trash stand, pipe guard, fire suppression canopy, etc.

My response to Good Experience's questions? I'd drive right by!

Here is an illustration of the importance of user experience over branding at one BP station:

A BP station here was recently remodelled in keeping with the brand image...and promptly went out of business. It's at the intersection of an interstate highway and one of the nation's busiest tourist routes, right next to a very busy McDonald's. I'm sure BP's execs were given some story about "local market conditions", but the real reason for the failure was the user experience at the pumps.

The controls, on the left side of the new pumps, had white-on-green and light-gray-on-slightly-darker-gray buttons. The LCD screen was several feet away, on the right side of the pump. Many customers, faced with this monstrosity, simply got back in their car and drove a block to the next gas station.

Interestingly enough, we launched a brand for a regional "c-store" chain here in north Florida a few years ago, and in the process conducted consumer research using just such questions that you posed in your column.

You're right; when asked reasons for choosing a particular brand of gasoline:

77% cited "location" as important
61% cited "price" as important (this was in 1998, so I imagine this answer would get much higher response in 2006)

Conversely:
only 24% cited "brand preference" as important
only 4% cited "product better for air" as important

But because many c-stores are clustered among other c-stores, they can not differentiate themselves on location (convenience) or price alone (competition won't allow that in clusters.) Therefore, our branding centered around creating a better customer experience. The model became: much cleaner gas stations, better (gourmet) coffee, fresh foods (limited, but still fresh), great car washes (not the kind you have to go through 8 times), and a loyalty/rewards program (we call it "frequent fueler miles".) The tagline of the company embodies this new c-store concept: "Dailys. It's Nicer Here."

It's been a huge success so far, and they continue to roll out more stores.

http://www.dailysstores.com

Best regards,
Tom Charde
Account Director
Burdette Ketchum

I feel that all y'all are forgetting one very importent market sgement: investors. BP is a publically traded company http://www.google.com/finance?q=BP While BP's efforts at brand development might be overshadowed by price and location at the pump, those two factors don't mean so much on the trading floor. It's moreso about perceived future value, which brand contributes to.

Cheers,
David Gartner
principal
Vs. Goliath

Up here in Toronto, ON Canada, I will go out of my way to find a Sunoco. They're the only chain that carries gas with a 94 octane rating. From both a mileage and performance perspective, my car runs better on the Ultra fuel.

Unlike the other chains that claim to have a better fuel, Sunoco actually carries a unique product that is definitively better. My experiences with Sunoco appeal to my car-nut sensibility and therefore I'm a strong supporter of this chain. It also helps that past tests by the Toronto Star have shown that their fuel has less sulfur than Esso or Shell.

So how 'bout that? A company distinguishing itself with a unique product that is relevant to the market!

Of couse, being ever cynical and practical, I always wonder why the other companies don't follow suit.

Then, today there is this news about the brand that promises to be so good---after a "dry run," manipulating fuel prices affecting millions of poor people throught the United States with the full knowledge of senior management.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115152494243093324.html?mod=home_whats_news_us)

My new formula: Ugly places/ugly behavior

Mark - thank for continuing to rant and rave about what REALLY is important to keep customers. Remember customers? We're the ones who don't CARE that Dell Financial and Dell are 2 different companies with, apparently, no connection whatsoever between them. We're the ones that just want you to take care of our problems, WITHOUT transferring us back and forth 5 times.

Can I note that I just stayed in the Westin in Stamford, CT where the service was so exceptional that *I* - a big curmudgeon - was incredibly impressed. They combined friendly and welcoming with efficiency and competence and a basic "there's someone home in there" pace and point of view.

Thank you for letting me rant.

I think that any company that claims to be earth-friendly, while still selling gasoline, is a joke. It's non-renewable, and contributes to global warming.