Using Winter Data for Future Success

Winter is over. In fact, the warmer months are in full swing. With home heating companies coming off one of the busiest seasons of late, now is the time to use past experience to improve next year. Recently, ADD Systems’ New England Account Manager, Steve Gent, participated in a panel at the Eastern Energy Expo titled, “Data-Driven Decisions – What Did the Winter of 2025 Teach Us?” This discussion led to insights on data and software, and how to use them as invaluable tools.

With all the activities a fuel company performs, whether it be deliveries or service calls, back office software gathers data and makes it available to view and analyze in search of opportunities for improvement. Finding the “why” behind the data can help businesses make smarter operational decisions for future success.

Increasing Delivery Efficiency

When looking back at the winter months, were you able to meet your KPIs? Did you make profitable drops, keep your run-outs low, and maintain efficient truck routes, even with the frigid temperatures and potentially higher number of last-minute phone orders?

“A company’s largest expense is running that truck,” Gent said. “When you factor in insurance, the hard cost of the vehicle, mileage, wear and tear, payroll, and the cost of goods on that truck, it adds up fast. Every mile and minute a driver spends making deliveries matters.”

Aiming for Ideal Drops

Delivery software helps increase efficiency in a number of ways. One of the most important is by maximizing each drop so that every delivery is as profitable as it can be. Each time a smaller-than-ideal delivery is made, the right software can suggest or even make automatic adjustments to forecasting to get closer to the ideal drop size for the next delivery. By managing your deliveries effectively, it is possible to deliver the same number of gallons over the year in fewer actual stops. This helps ensure that future driver and truck hours on the road are well spent.

Were ideal drops made this winter? Delivery analysis reports can point out opportunities for improvement. Now is the time to look at those reports and make changes for future success.

Optimizing Routes

Another key delivery efficiency function is routing. Even with a route full of ideal drops, maximum profitability hinges on driving the fewest miles and spending the least amount of time on the road.  Software can quickly and easily compute the best, most efficient route for the driver to follow.

Gent explained how route optimization is more than starting at the furthest point and working back. “If you just drive to the farthest point and zigzag back, you’re not really optimizing anything. But when your software knows your customers’ locations and reload location options, it can calculate the most efficient route for maximum delivery efficiency, saving both time and miles.”

This coming winter, you can work smarter than you did before. Use your analytics to maximize drop size to reduce the number of stops and take advantage of your software’s ability to optimize and re-optimize when last-minute orders come in.  Following these practices will make efficiency and profitability come together.

Transitioning Customers from Will-Call to Automatic Delivery

Optimizing routes is important, but managing will-call customers is also a priority since they can throw a wrench into even the best-planned routes. While last-minute phone orders can still be given to a driver and the whole route can be quickly re-optimized, it is better to know about them days in advance so you can have more flexibility to fit them into your normal delivery schedule. Software helps you do this. Based on historical usage, you can predict their next delivery date and proactively reach out to solicit an order for a day when you already plan to be in that area.

Retaining Your Predictable Customer Base with Smart Pricing and Budget Plans

Once a will-call customer takes you up on that delivery offer, now is the time to reach out to those clients and share the benefits of automatic delivery. While automatic accounts are safer and more reliable for customers, it’s good to offer financial incentives to solidify that relationship. Will-call orders are priced higher than automatic deliveries, which gives customers a clear incentive to be an automatic account permanently, but budget plans or pricing plans can be an even greater incentive.

Gent compared this to sporadic payments versus subscriptions in TV streaming options.

“We used to go on HBO and buy a movie, then Netflix came along and said, here’s a subscription service,” Gent said. “That’s what budget and automatic plans do: they make it easier for the customer to just let you keep delivering. It’s harder to break out of a subscription than to stay in it.”

Pre-paid pricing plans offer customers a discount for purchasing product in advance, and budgets additionally offer equal payments throughout the year. Both plans incentivize customer loyalty and offer predictability to the customer and the business. They even allow businesses to confidently plan supplier contracts.

“When you put a customer on a budget plan, it gives you, as a fuel marketer, the ability to forecast your supply needs more accurately,” Gent said. “Your contracts with suppliers are influenced by what you expect to deliver, so even having will-call customers on some kind of forecasted schedule helps you plan purchases more efficiently.”

If will-call customers presented challenges this past winter for your business, now is the time to market the benefits of becoming a keep-full customer. It’s also a great time to put regular processes in play to proactively reach out to will calls when you are planning to be in their area. Both initiatives will help your delivery department have more control and potential for increased efficiency.

Improving Service Efficiency and Profitability

This cold winter proved to be a challenge for delivery, but it also was an opportunity to put your service efficiency to the test. How did your department fare? Was it running smoothly, or were things mostly chaotic with increased overtime required to cover the calls? Your software tools can offer a quick analysis of your service KPIs to help you analyze your performance and determine where to focus your efforts for future success.

“A good software platform is rich with data,” Gent continued. “You can analyze technician efficiency, product reliability, and vendor performance. Are you getting strong warranty support? Are certain products causing more issues? Even simple metrics like billable hours help you identify how effective your technicians really are.”

Dispatchers can use software to improve their decisions, too, which ultimately improves a business’s bottom line: “If two techs have the same qualifications, but one is 8 miles away and the other is 20, sending the closer one saves time, increases billable hours, and reduces mileage. Those small decisions add up when you’re managing a large team.”

Now is the time to take a strong look at how well you made use of your software’s capabilities, and your service analytics are a good place to start. They can help you determine training needs for some technicians, identify profitability problems for specific types of calls, or even recognize some new functional expertise for some of your techs. All of this will help to improve your operation in the future.

Bringing It All Together

The past winter was a challenge with its extreme cold, but it provided a good opportunity to use your analytics to hone in on areas for improvement. Your software can help you be more proactive and make better decisions when you take full advantage of its capabilities. By prioritizing these best practices, fuel companies can not only increase profitability but consistently provide a dependable, high-quality service next winter and all year round.