Most Road Ranger locations are joining the Upside platform to give customers a good deal, the travel-center chain said Wednesday.
Upside’s mobile app helps motorists save on gasoline by directing them to participating fuel stations, such as 33 of 47 Road Ranger locations in the Midwest. Road Ranger travel centers also have electric-vehicle (EV) charging ports.
“As Road Ranger continues to evolve and expand our fuel network, we wanted to ensure we continue to not only cater to the professional drivers, but to the traditional auto driver as well,” said Ryan Arnold, Road Ranger's vice president of marketing. “We know the fuel and convenience industry is strongly driven by price, and we are always looking for ways to ensure our customers feel they are getting the best deal out there. Our partnership with Upside is just another way Road Ranger is giving back to the everyday consumer.”
Upside's mobile app and partner apps allow retailers to contact 30 million potential consumers. The Upside app uses geolocation data to identify nearby users and send them personalized cash back offers to entice them to visit participating fuel locations.
"By adding our stations to the Upside platform, we'll be able to reach consumers through new digital channels, which have become a popular means for deciding where to buy. This move will enable us to better cater to the evolving needs of our customers,” said KJ McCann, Road Ranger digital and loyalty marketing manager.
Road Ranger, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, is a unit of Empresa Nacional de Energia Enex S.A. (Enex), a subsidiary of Chilean conglomerate Quinenco. It has travel centers with full amenities, including WiFi, ATMs, and Amazon lockers, in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas.
Upside said it boosts the effectiveness of promotions delivered from its mobile app by limiting market saturation to 30% of stations in a given area.
The Washington, D.C.-based retail technology company draws exclusivity zones around stations that prevent competing fuel stations from joining Upside, a spokesperson said. When customers open the app, they see the participating station, but not others in the area. This approach gives participating retailers a better shot at drawing traffic to their sites, but it also blocks consumers from seeing all the fuel stations in an area. Consumers using the free app to find a nearby fuel station pay full price at the pump but earn cash back in their Upside accounts.
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