AUSTIN, Texas – Kwik Chek Food Stores, the Texas-based convenience store chain with 39 locations across Texas and Oklahoma, is pioneering new and connected personalized customer experiences by implementing a mobile commerce solution in partnership with P97 Networks.

Recognizing that siloed, legacy technologies in a convenience store operation are often unreliable and require cumbersome management and maintenance processes, P97 Networks set out to help Kwik Chek create a solution that also takes aim at several persistent industry-specific problems, according to Lew Bezanson, chief technology officer of P97 Networks.

Bezanson writes that P97, which is a NACS Hunter Club member, utilized Microsoft Azure IoT services and other Microsoft technologies to pioneer two solutions at Kwik Chek locations:

• PetroZone Mobile Commerce, a mobile app for Windows, Android and iOS that enables navigation, cashless payment and smart digital offers; and
• PetroZone Retail Fuels Module (RFM), a cloud-based point-of-sale solution based on Microsoft Dynamics AX that connects legacy systems with centralized management capabilities to enable improvements in inventory, pricing and supply processes.

First, the PetroZone mobile app enables Kwik Check customers to connect via the cloud to geo-locate the nearest Kwik Chek location, reserve a pump from the convenience of their car, and find out about the availability of a car wash, ATM and other services. Using secure, multifactor authentication, the app allows secure payments to be made from customers’ debit/credit card or linked to their checking account, so that payment is accomplished by a scan of a mobile phone, rather than the swipe of a card. That can be a big security advantage for customers, according to Daniel Gaddy, director of information technology at Kwik Chek.

“When you have credit card information stolen, all sorts of damage can occur, from identity theft to charges online. With the PetroZone app, no cardholder data is ever stored or transmitted to or from the phone; even if you lose your phone, there are ways to wipe that phone remotely. It’s a far more secure method of payment,” says Gaddy in an article recently published by Microsoft. For customers using the app with their checking accounts, it saves credit card fees on both sides of the transaction, helping Kwik Chek reduce a major line-item expense and potentially reduce customers’ gas costs by as much as 10 cents a gallon.

The mobile commerce solution also offers opt-in features that track customers’ mobile purchase history, then uses that data to generate relevant digital discount offers that are sent to customers’ smartphones in real time, while they’re still onsite. This helps Kwik Chek bring fuel-only customers into the store.

“Today, as an industry average, approximately 70% of our fuel customers never come inside the store,” says Kevin Smartt, CEO of Kwik Chek and NACS Board member. “These offers are bringing more of them in, resulting in increased in-store sales from formerly fuel-only customers. It’s a big advantage for customers, too, who save money on things they’re likely to buy anyway.”

With each purchase using the mobile app, customers accumulate points toward future discounts. And while customers are saving money, new insights from customer data enable Kwik Chek to better control inventory, reduce costs and create much more effective marketing.

“The mobile experience and loyalty program create a one-to-one relationship between us and our customers,” says Smartt.

Second, the PetroZone RFM solution integrates critical systems inside the store, including store inventory, POS, pin-pad systems and fuel pumps, providing Kwik Chek with better management of purchasing, inventory and pricing, and payments and accounting. The module also works with existing infrastructure, such as fueling site controllers, electronic payment systems and car wash systems.

Because the touch screen is based on familiar Windows technology, it allows for faster checkout and quicker customer service. “People count on us for quick transactions,” says Gaddy. “They want to save time by coming to a convenience store. So reliability is core to our industry. The system also allows for rapid updates to stay current with new innovations from Microsoft, P97 and its partners.”

Kwik Chek’s new systems can be monitored and updated remotely, and pricing and other updates are accomplished in near real time.

P97 plans to roll out its solution to 5,000 locations in 2015, both for Kwik Chek and other customers in the United States — a major sweep it believes will signal a turning point for the convenience and fuel retailing industry.