AUBURN, Calif. -- NELLA Oil Co. is the first customer to deploy Excentus Corp.'s new Commercial Card Link (CCL) to replace Trans380 terminals that accept Commercial Fueling Network (CFN) fleet cards.
NELLA has installed CCL at its Flyers and Olympian sites in Northern and Central California, with plans to deploy the technology at many of its Chevron- , Shell- and Valero-branded sites where CFN cards are accepted. In addition to NELLA, several other commercial fuel operators have placed orders for the CCL system, said Excentus, a provider of fuel site marketing programs, technology and [image-nocss] integration services.
The integrated features of CCL will not only improve our customers' experience, but it will also give us better controls to make sure that all fleet transactions are processed correctly, said Tom DiMercurio, director of technology at NELLA Oil, Auburn, Calif.
The [CCL] is targeted toward fuel marketers that want to attract more commercial business to their sites by accepting fleet cards like CFN, Fuelman, Comdata and PacPride, said Scott Wetzel, vice president of marketing at Irving, Texas-based Excentus.
CCL allows customers to make fleet card payments at the pump, with no manual intervention or re-entry of data. It supports multiple fleet payment hosts and transaction stacking so transactions do not get lost during heavy traffic times. It also provides access to local transaction logs that convenience store operators can use to reconcile against their fleet host transaction reports. Finally, the CCL requires no changes to the operators' point-of-sale (POS) system. It plugs into the site's existing Verifone Ruby or Gilbarco G-Site terminal's RS "232 port and then routes fleet transactions to the appropriate host(s) over a TCP/IP, VSAT or dial-up connection.
Wetzel said many c-store operators currently handle credit card transactions through their in-store POS system. These transactions are routed to hosts, either operated by Buypass, ADS or their brand (Chevron, Exxon, etc.). If they want to accept fleet cards to attract city government vehicles, repair fleets, delivery trucks and utility company vehicles, they have to install a separate device to accommodate those customers. The device may be added to the fuel pumps or located inside the c-store.
If the terminal is located inside the store, Wetzel said, customers have to come inside, swipe the card to get pre-authorized to pump fuel, go back outside to dispense the gas, and then come back inside to re-swipe the card so that the actual number of gallons dispensed and the fuel type can be posted. In between the time that the clerk swipes the fleet card on the fleet payment terminal and gets a pre-authorization back from the host, he has to authorize the pump. The process is tedious and" because there is so much manual entry of data" prone to error.
NELLA Oil owns and operates Flyers and Olympian retail convenience stores and Java City Espresso Bars. In addition, NELLA Oil is a branded distributor of Chevron, Shell and Valero fuels for both wholesale and retail customers. As the largest member of CFN, NELLA Oil also operates one of the largest chains of cardlock fuel sites"Olympian in Northern and Central California, and a fleet of fuel transports"Gulf Transportation, supplying independent dealers, jobbers and other commercial end users.
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