Essential Fuel Supplier Agreement Elements: Quality Control/Training, Marketing Support and Credit Card Processing
/Detailing the 10 Essential Elements of a Favorable Fuel Supplier Agreement, Part 3
By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Publisher’s note: Our bloggers, John Enticknap and Ron Jackson will be discussing these topics and others affecting the FBO Industry at the next NATA FBO Success Seminar, March 8-9, New Orleans.
Previously, we talked about six of the 10 essential elements of a favorable fuel supplier agreement: Term of agreement, pricing methodology, transportation and delivery, terminal locations, credit terms and taxes. A favorable fuel supplier agreement is one of the six intangibles that can build equity in your FBO.
For this blog post, we'll break down three additional elements of the favorable fuel supplier agreement and provide insight and tips to help you protect your business while adding intrinsic value.
Quality Control and Training
Putting safety first is paramount in developing a good relationship with your fuel supplier. Often your fuel supplier will have resources to help you train your employees in all aspects of the fuel delivery process to help insure not only safety but the quality of the product as well. Your fuel supplier agreement should detail what type of training program they will provide. It may include their own program or supplement your own in-house safety and quality assurance program such as NATA Safety 1st. Determine during your fuel contract negotiations what quality program your fuel supplier will provide. For example, will they come to your facility for training or just conduct an audit? Will they complete quality assurance seminars and at whose expense — yours or theirs?
Marketing Support
Many fuel suppliers offer support for marketing your facility and their brand of fuel. This support often comes in the form of a co-op program that creates a marketing fund based on your fuel volume. Like many parts of your fuel agreement, the terms or percentage of fuel sales put into these funds by the fuel supplier is somewhat negotiable. We suggest you have a well thought-out marketing program in place to help your negotiations.
Credit card processing
If you want to have a real impact on your bottom line, watching your credit card processing fees is a very important factor. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you come to this part of your fuel agreement:
- These fees are negotiable.
- Do your research on what your fees are prior to negotiating with your fuel supplier or local bank.
- Train your CSR staff to ask for the no-fee card or card with the lowest fee.
Keep in mind that there are many factors and nuances, and we will not be able to expound on all of them in the framework of a blog. Therefore, we encourage you to attend our next NATA FBO Success Seminar, March 8-9 in New Orleans, where we spend additional time and discussion on these important topics as well as others.
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About the bloggers:
John Enticknap has more than 35 years of aviation fueling and FBO services industry experience. Ron Jackson is co-founder of Aviation Business Strategies Group and president of The Jackson Group, a PR agency specializing in FBO marketing and customer service training. Visit the biography page or absggroup.com for more background.
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