Gillette Air Conditioning Company is a family-owned and operated business that’s been serving South Texas for over 60 years. They have 170 employees and 92 vehicles on the road.
The Challenge
Gillette’s Human Resources Manager, Katelyn Machen, has been working to transition the company to a paperless process for nine years. They previously worked with a station-specific fleet card, and their employees were finding it increasingly difficult to find stations. They also found the card’s processing system restrictive and difficult to track, and the company itself inflexible and unresponsive.
Describing her difficulties with the cards, Katelyn explained, “The very difficult part was those cards were really assigned to the vehicles and it was very hard to track who was using what. The turnaround was incredibly slow.” Beyond the particulars of the card itself, she found the company uncooperative and uncommunicative when a payment got lost in the mail during the holidays. “The holidays caused a slowdown for everyone. A check got lost in the mail, and rather than having a conversation with us and trying to find a better solution, they turned off our access to our gas cards.”
The Solution
Katelyn decided to switch the company’s fleet cards to Coast. She describes the transition as “one of the easiest things I’ve done.” Recalling similar switchovers she says, “Whether it was insurance, HRIS, you name the type of system, I have not had a single provider that was as thorough, provided as much follow-up, or expressed as much concern for our well-being and how things are working as I have with Coast.”
Turning to Coast not only provided her employees with a far easier route to fueling their vehicles but also provided a straightforward platform that gave her far more flexibility and reporting capabilities. “It was effectively a simple spreadsheet. One submission and we were ready to rock and roll as soon as those cards came in. And utilizing the website has been incredibly easy. I received an email with a link and my login credentials, clicked log-in, and off I went. It was self-explanatory.”
Helpful Tracking Makes Reporting and Invoicing Far Easier
Katelyn appreciates that Coast’s system addressed long-standing challenges. Her tracking and reporting problems have been solved. “We’re able to track down to the employee or by the vehicle or the kind of fuel we’re utilizing. That has been incredibly helpful. We’re able to get people assigned and going when they walk into my office. Taking care of the vehicles and keeping an eye on what’s going on with our vehicles has also been helpful, and so has billing. Our statements are very comprehensive and incredibly easy to read and assign to each of our departments. It’s just been great all the way around.”
Coast’s system is also responsive and flexible in real-time. She points to her experience when an employee’s gas card was stolen as a perfect example. “Within two minutes, I had turned off the old card, assigned the employee a new card, and they’d already gotten a text that their new card was active. I think the product speaks for itself.”
Responsive Customer Service
The responsiveness that Katelyn has enjoyed since switching to Coast is particularly important to her after a disappointing interaction with her previous company. “Being a 40-year customer and not even having the opportunity to make some corrections and maybe get a secondary check in the mail … In order to do our business, we had to have fuel and we couldn’t get it. Our employees were having to pay out of pocket, and we were having to reimburse them. That’s not fair to the employee because it’s not their responsibility to pay for gas for the company’s vehicles. I just thought it was really unprofessional.”
By contrast, she has found Coast incredibly responsive. “Anytime I’ve had a question, I’ve either been able to email someone directly or I’ve utilized the chat function and gotten myself taken care of within minutes.”
The Coast card provided Gillette Air Conditioning Company’s on-the-road employees with significant benefits, while also making setup easier and providing more informative reporting. The company’s responsive customer service and support made the decision to switch even more rewarding.
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