Success is in the air
A comfortable store environment is absolutely vital to great customer experience (CX), satisfaction, and loyalty. Your stores are similar to the digital world, where the only thing changing faster than technology itself are customer expectations. You need every visitor to perceive your stores as pleasant, welcoming places from the moment they come through your doors, while they shop, and when they’re deciding to come back to give you more business. The air provided by your HVAC systems (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) is a primary way to ensure a positive interaction. That means you always need them to be running and properly functioning, while not breaking the bank.
A difficult (and expensive balancing act)
Keeping the temperature just right in your stores isn’t simple or cheap. All of the lighting, coolers, freezers, heated and cooled food areas, coffee makers, soda fountains, frozen drink machines, and other technology that your stores need are constantly throwing off significant amounts of heat. Round-the-clock store hours and frequent openings and closings of your doors mean the heat (or cold) of the outside air is always an issue. Employees can try to compensate with constant thermostat adjustments, but that just means more system activity.
It’s not surprising that HVAC and Lighting are the two biggest energy users (and wasters) in most convenience stores accounting for between 45%-55% of your energy use. They also present the biggest opportunities for savings. But while a growing number of stores are making the smart, profitable shift to LED lighting systems, effective solutions for cutting HVAC costs are often seen as requiring too big an investment, too much of a maintenance commitment, or simply uncertain to deliver results. A recent survey by Budderfly found, that even locations with modern HVAC systems installed only had them properly configured less than 40% of the time. HVAC systems are a ticking time bomb of wasted cost that most owners just hope to avoid.
You get what you pay for
Top-of-the line air conditioning units really do use a lot less energy while delivering great performance, but they can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars per store location. Even tuning up existing, good-quality units can be a big project.
Properly installed, maintained, and managed, high-quality HVAC equipment can deliver double-digit percentage reductions to electrical use and more than pay for themselves. But recouping the investment can take years, and to deliver superior performance and efficiency, frequent, specialized proactive maintenance is required. A monitoring system that incorporates multiple smart thermostats and makes constant automatic adjustments creates even more impressive efficiency.
In short, it takes significant money and effort to get the best equipment and then expertise to keep it working. Or you could just let someone else provide all the capital and do all the work.
There’s an effortless, risk-free alternative
Thanks to a recently introduced program, C-store owners can partner with Budderfly, the fastest-growing firm in the Energy Efficiency as a Service (EEaaS) category. Budderfly ensures that all their customers’ store locations have access to top-of-the-line HVAC systems, including upgrading or replacing existing equipment. This is part of a comprehensive energy efficiency upgrade and monitoring service of all a c-store’s key systems including lighting, refrigeration, water heating, and more. Businesses that partner with Budderfly create the bright, comfortable shopper experience they need to succeed, as well as enjoying significant energy saving in their pockets and throughout their stores.
Best of all, rather than charging customers for these improvements and services, Budderfly simply uses a portion of the money saved to pay for them. There is absolutely no up-front cost, while maintenance and monitoring are included, and results begin on day one, guaranteed. Thousands of business locations have turned to Budderfly for effortless energy efficiency, including the best HVAC solutions. Are you ready for your stores to join them?
To learn more about how you can save on HVAC and other energy expenses, visit Budderfly online.
This post is sponsored by Budderfly