With different offerings at each of its 74 stores, MFA Oil, based in Columbia, Missouri, prides itself on its loyalty program for marketing through all of its convenience-store locations.
MFA Oil, with all of its Break Time-branded stores located in rural Missouri, was founded in 1985 and is owned by a farmer cooperative that has been around since 1928.
“We’re owned by 40,000 farmers," Jennifer Bach, vice president of Break Time operations at MFA Oil Co. said. “We’re very different. We’ve grown through acquisition and new store builds and so we have a lot of different offerings in our stores.”
- MFA is No. 98 in CSP’s 2023 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by size.
At CSP’s Outlook Leadership conference last week in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, Bach (middle), spoke with Jeff Hoover (right), director of strategy and analytics at Paytronix, Newton, Massachusetts; and Peter Rasmussen (left), CEO and founder of Convenience and Energy Advisors, St. Petersburg, Florida.
The chain launched its loyalty program in 2017. It is made up of four tiers based on how often a customer visits the store. Store visits each month determine a customer's tier and add up to rewards that the customer can redeem the next month.
The rewards are based on fuel discounts, fountain drinks and coffee. Customers get points based on how much they spend on fuel or inside sales. The higher the tier, the more points they get.
“It's not to say like you have to get to one of these tiers to really benefit from the program,” said Hoover of Paytronix. “This is really enhancing the program. And we've seen really good success with this idea of visit-based tiers by month.”
It’s a messaging opportunity, said Hoover. Toward the end of the month, if MFA sends a text reminding a customer that they have two more visits in the next week to maintain their status, it can be impactful.
Employees are bonused on their penetration, and its something MFA monitors all the time, said Bach.
“At the end of the day, the biggest driving factor is your team’s in-store [push] and if they’re asking for loyalty and messaging the importance and the value we get out of it,” said Hoover.
MFA considers which employees need to work on pushing the program, too.
“We’ve often seen the exact same programs, and one is at 5% and the other one is at 30% [penetration],” said Hoover. “It’s not because the consumers see it differently, it’s because it’s executed differently.”
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