Presentation by Dealer fraternity on changing scenarios of operations, marketing, technology in use at our Retail Outlets.

I am herewith reproducing the docuument sent by our dealer Mr. Rajiv, M/s Amar Jyothi Fuels, Hyderabad, who presented the same at Dealer Convention of SEC DO, 2011 regarding the Presentation by Dealer fraternity on changing scenarios of operations, marketing, technology in use at our Retail Outlets.


Presentation by Dealer fraternity on changing scenarios of operations, marketing, technology in use at our Retail Outlets.

28th March 2011

In 2000:

Dealer had very less paper work and used to spend very less time behind the desk.
Dealer had lot of time to interact with the customers.
Dealer had lot of time for marketing.

Now in 2011:

Dealer has lots of paper work and spends good amount of time behind the desk.
Dealer has very less time to interact with customers.
Dealer has very less time to do marketing.

In 2000:

Dealer had time to keep an eye on the day to day activities (House Keeping, sales men, customer grievances etc…) at the RO.


Dealer was happy with the profits with Limited Retail Outlets to compete.


Dealer had good profit in Lube Sales as the prices were low with good margin.

Now in 2011:

Dealer has no time left because manual data entry is required in spite of honeywell automation and also other activities like TT retention samples, etc…) apart from following all the old procedures.
Dealer started looking for new businesses for additional income to survive and even to compete with the New ROs which are mushrooming like weeds.

Profits vaporized from Lube Sales.
In 2000:

Maintenance of Approach Road, Driveway, Dispensing units was taken up on time by the company as the number of RO’s were less.

Adequate dispensing units for giving quick and quality service were provided.

With less investment and good financial help from the company like Cheque/DOD/5-day revolving credit facilities we could extend credit to the customers to attain good volumes.

Now in 2011:

Delay in Maintenance of Approach Road, Driveway, Dispensing units, etc…

With shortage of dispensing units and non availability of spares we are in no position to give good customer service.

As the fuel prices have gone up by more than 2 folds the investment increased and by withdrawing Cheque/DOD/5-day revolving credit facilities, we are in no position to extend the same to the customers due to which we are loosing volumes to other oil companies.
Result :

No personal interaction with the customers.
No new business developments.
Customer feels ignored.
No control over the staff.
Ultimately loss of sales.
Solution :

Streamlining the paper work with less redundancy.
Effective support and timely response from company officials.
Use of professional help for handling complaints and maintenance of RO.
More remuneration for hiring skilled & educated staff for providing better service.
Cheque / eDOD / 5-day revolving credit facility should be extended to performing dealers even in small towns and villages to improve the volumes.
2-Stroke engines replaced by 4-Stroke engines.
Regular shortage of some grades like KoolPlus, Brake Fluid, Futura, etc. is driving the customer away.
SSA & SSI entering the retail market and poaching our customers.
Diminishing of road-side workshops and authorised service centers not allowing oil purchased from us by threatening loss of warranty.
Good quality lubes and fine engines have extended lube changing cycle.
Proper availability of small packs of all the grades should be ensured.

Improvement is needed in sealing and packing of the product to gain customer confidence.

Strict action should be taken against SSA / SSI if they are making a direct sale to the end-user.
If maintenance of DU’s is not done periodically we noticed irregularities in product delivery, which in turn is creating a negative picture of the dealers.
As the facility to deliver the product in rupees was introduced to avoid the inconvenience of providing proper change to the customer the dealer is getting a dent in his profits as some of the DU manufactures have a display of only 2 decimals for quantity calculation due to which excess product is delivered when product is given in rupees.
The new policy for Xtracare has a criteria where the reimbursement is based on MS sales irrespective of the area (Urban / Rural). Where as the old policy was based on location of the RO and even the reimbursement and man power requirement were accordingly. But as per the new policy the man power requirement for all the RO’s is the same due to which the reimbursement given to a low MS selling outlet is not sufficient for maintenance. We kindly request you to rewrite the policy to suit every Xtracare RO taking into consideration all product sales as a rural RO has low MS and high HSD sales.
Most of the dealers have observed variation beyond permissible limits in underground tank stock when the product volume is low or vise versa. We request the company to take necessary action to avoid penal actions against the dealer.
We dealers have even observed no change in volume (dip levels) of the product in the TT even though there are high variations in the temperature from loading point to the receiving point.
We have been receiving product with different densities in a short span of days and because of this there are huge variations in density in our underground tank beyond permissible limits. We request you to attend to this issue and also provide a solution.
Cantonment and Tool charges are not reimbursed to the dealers for unknown reasons.
Most of the dealers have not received their security deposits given for previous TT contract.
Without proper guidelines, modifications to the TT at the time of calibration, non approved color scheme, branding, etc., which attracts additional expenditure should not be imposed.
The security deposit collected for reconstitution should be reduced and also waiver of security deposit should be given if it is done within the family.
Regular updates should be done in reconstitution policies as per legal requirements to avoid unnecessary delays.
In spite of having a company helpline to register dealer complaints no issue is attended in a proper timeline. We request you to have enhanced dealer friendly complaint logging facility to have escalation levels as well as web / tele enabled tracking system.