Fuel Postpay Policy at Petrol Station: Review and Recommendations

This report examines a fuel postpay policy within a petrol station context, fulfilling the role of a manager. It begins with a literature review, exploring existing payment policies and customer needs for flexible options. The report then details a policy consultation, gathering opinions from fuel suppliers, workers, and customers to gauge the policy's potential impact. Based on the literature and stakeholder feedback, the report offers specific recommendations for improving the postpay policy, such as setting aside a special fueling pump and implementing a system for tracking customer fuel purchase history. The goal is to enhance customer satisfaction and streamline operations within the petrol station.

Running head: FUEL POSTPAY POLICY
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Post-pay Services in a Petrol Station
Name
Institution

FUEL POSTPAY POLICY
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Fuel post pay policy
Literature Review
People make choices basing on a number of reasons that range from flexibility to
variety. Collier (2010) acknowledged that its human nature to have a set of choices to
make a selection from. In the world of business, a customer is a most valued person a
business wish to keep around thus every organization strives to do whatever it can to
satisfy the endless needs of its customers so as to maintain them (Purohit 2013).
According to Prahalad (2000), some organizations adopt new policies that will appear to
be favorable to customers even though in reality it’s not.
Payment policy is one of the major concerns of a customer that will determine how
frequent he will buy from you. The kind of payment policy you should be flexible enough
for him/her. Most people do not like paying for goods instantly. Some of them may be
having financial constraints at the moment but they really need to access a product very
urgently. The solution to this is a business to adopt a post-payment policy that will allow
customers to access goods up to a certain limit and pay for them later based on certain
criteria. Now let’s say I have to travel a distance of 200 km but the fuel in my tank is not
enough to enable me to get to my destination but I am near the petrol station I normally
fuel in, what will I do for me to get the fuel yet I have tried all means of getting money but
all in vain. If that petrol station could have initiated a fuel post pay policy things wouldn’t
be a headache on my side
The post-pay policy should allow customers to receive services they want for 15
days then pay for the five days after payment statement is processed. For a customer to

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qualify using such a policy, all his/her purchasing history has to be checked if he/she
meets the stipulated criteria. The history is extracted from the recording of previous
purchase record kept in the station’s system.
A similar policy is a credit card payment where a customer can do fuel filling I a
station for a whole month and then pay for the services within 15 days after processing of
the payment statement to avoid being penalized. The city of Chicago in its article “Filling
Station Rules” 2014 revised payment policies to include credit card payment policy. This
method seems convenient to some customers but it does not give a concrete solution to the
problem in our situation because if a customer does not have a credit card it means no
service will be rendered to him/her..
Policy Consultation
Fuel suppliers, customers, and the workers will have to be consulted for their
opinion if the policy sounds favorable to improve the performance of the filling station.
Suppliers will be asked if they can offer to supply fuel and other required services for a
certain period and then payment be settled at later dates. Consequently, the workers will
be consulted to give their view if this policy will help to keep customers around because
they are the ones that interact with the customers frequently. Customers too should be
consulted to seek their opinion if they are flexible with this policy and how do they think
it will help them.
Recommendations
From the literature reviewed, the policy should be adopted because customers who
cannot afford cash and credit card to get a great challenge to fuel their cars although this

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will depend on every stakeholder’s view if they think the policy is good. A special fueling
pump should be set aside for those who wish to use this post pay services to avoid
congestion at the filling station. It is also recommended that a system that keeps tracks of
fuelling history of a customer to be put in place so that when he/she wants to use post pay
service, the details of purchasing history are just checked instantly using his/her ID.

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References
Collier, M. (2010). The ultimate online customer service guide: how to connect with your
customers to sell more!.John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
City of Chicago Rules (2014): Filling station Rules: Retrieved on October, 12, 2018.
Available at:
https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/dol/rulesandregs/
FillingStationRules.pdf
Prahalad, C. K., &Ramaswamy, V. (2000).Co-opting customer competence. Harvard
business review, 78(1), 79-90.
Purohit, G., &Purohit, D. (2013).From customer satisfaction to customer delight: a new
trend in hospitality industry. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies,
3(5), 545-548.