Proactive Customer Care and Innovative Solutions Help Customers Win With This Fleet Card Provider

In a Nutshell: Cutting costs is always on a business’s to-do list, and fuel is a significant expense for companies that manage fleets. Christensen provides fleet cards and fuel management services that help businesses control costs and improve efficiency. The company’s accessible customer service team helps businesses avoid obstacles on the road to savings.

I read an article recently that offered tips to help family members get along when they gather for the holidays, at least for the duration of their visits. We don’t choose our family members. And that means it sometimes takes a little patience and self-control to get through a day — or even a meal — with each other without the occasion devolving into a series of heated arguments.

But some families manage a business together, requiring them to put aside their differences to pursue a common goal. Ever since I watched “The Partridge Family” as a kid, I’ve admired how families can use their shared backgrounds to forge a special bond that helps them succeed in business endeavors.

Gary and Annette Christensen established Christensen, a leader in the fuel delivery and management arena, in 1980. Today, Gary and Annette Christensen’s five sons lead the company. We caught up with one of the couple’s sons, Keagan Christensen, who serves as General Manager of Fleet Card at Christensen, and Travis Paulson, Christensen’s Vice President, Commercial, to talk more about the company’s innovative solutions.

“Through the years, we’ve remained a business that is owned and operated by our family,” Christensen told us. “My parents have taken a step back from what they were doing for decades in the business. So my brothers are now all operating the various wings of the company, and the fleet card is kind of my baby.”

In addition to fueling products, Christensen provides its fleet cards to help companies access discounts and manage their fueling programs. 

The fuel-solutions provider is based in the Pacific Northwest. Christensen told us the company serves customers in all 50 states and Canada, but approximately 70% to 80% of the company’s business comes from customers operating in California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

“The space we play in for fleet cards serves small to mid-size businesses all the way up to enterprise companies,” Christensen told us. “We have some customers who are pretty sizable and are doing more than one million gallons of fuel each year with us. But we really specialize in serving those business owners who have 5, 10, 50, or 100 trucks on the road.”

The last time I drove my car to the gas station for fuel, a line of cars extended across the parking lot. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and people were filling their gas tanks for their travel home and their weekend adventures. I took my time in line at the gas station as an opportunity to survey the types of cars people were driving these days. 

To my surprise, I couldn’t locate two cars that were the same make and model. Fortunately, cars of unique make and models can run on the same types of fuel. If each make of car required specialized fuel, then the country might be running out of real estate to house all the gas stations we’d need. 

Christensen’s solutions suit a variety of businesses and their vehicles. The company serves businesses operating in the construction space, providing solutions to keep paving vehicles and dump trucks in action. Christensen also counts among its customer base entities that manage fleets of buses, such as charter bus companies and school districts.

“We have fantastic offerings for agricultural haulers, especially those that are working out of Washington state,” Christensen told us. “If you’ve got a fleet of vehicles, and you’re using more than 500 gallons of fuel, then we can show you ways to make things a lot simpler for yourself. Our customers really enjoy that we’re a family-owned business and that we have fantastic people working for us.”

The company’s customer care team is available around the clock at 855-335-9448. Christensen told us drivers who are stuck on the road with a fuel concern tend to call the fuel-solution provider’s customer service team, not their managers, for support.

Other companies offer fleet card solutions, but Christensen told us that they may not all offer specialized reporting tools. Christensen’s fleet card tools allow the company to create customized reporting for its customers.

The company also helps customers access discounts at the pump that they may not have on their radar.

“For example, there’s a federal exemption on diesel fuel for buses,” Christensen told us. “So if you have a diesel bus that can carry more than 20 passengers, then you qualify for a federal tax exemption that we allow customers to realize at the pump. Most folks, they’re waiting until the end of the year or the quarter to file for the credit they can get on those purchases, but we offer it to them right now.”

No matter how innovative a company’s solutions are, it needs the right team in place to execute its strategies and serve its customers. Paulson told us that Christensen blends technology with employee expertise and service to satisfy its customers.

The fuel-solutions provider assigns representatives to customers so they can work with someone at Christensen who understands their business and the challenges they encounter. Paulson said Christensen’s customer-facing representatives analyze a customer’s account to ensure they’re finding fueling locations that offer them the best prices.

“We don’t just rely on artificial intelligence — we actually have a person that reviews customer purchases to spot inefficiencies,” Paulson told us. “We’ve also utilized technology for something as simple as developing QR codes that we put on our cards that can assist when someone’s having a problem at the pump. We’re a full-service distributor, and we know what the needs are for every different product line and each type of fuel.”

Businesses that issue fuel cards to employees may worry that they’ll misuse funds they can access with the card. Christensen’s cards come with controls that program administrators can use to limit how many gallons of fuel cardholders can buy within a certain timeframe and what other products they can purchase. Christensen said the company’s controls help reduce employee theft and provide peace of mind to business owners.

Christensen monitors fraud alerts to ensure it shuts down cards that have fallen into the wrong hands. The company consults with its customers and financial institutions to verify transactions.

Anyone who’s applied for a credit card knows that a successful application doesn’t mean you’ll receive your card on the next business day. Receiving a new or replacement card quickly can be a significant advantage for companies that need to meet shipping deadlines.

“We limit the amount of downtime a business has by printing the cards we issue in-house,” Christensen told us. “We can usually get a replacement card out to someone within 48 hours. Whereas, if you’re getting a card from one of our competitors, you could be looking at a two-week turnaround.”

Advertisements are meant to catch our attention, but consumers may find some marketing efforts hard to understand. I once lived near a bakery that claimed to offer the best bagels in town. I’m not sure how they arrived at that conclusion, but I do know the bakery went out of business a few years after they made their best-bagel proclamation.

Christensen doesn’t just claim to save money for its customers, it proves it to them. The company’s sales team regularly reviews with clients reports that detail the time and money they have saved by using Christensen’s fuel-service solutions.

The company assesses its performance by tracking its Net Promoter Score. The fleet-card provider also surveys customers to gather feedback and improve its offerings.

“We get some good feedback from the surveys we send out, and we review the results from those weekly with our leadership team,” Christensen told us. “If somebody gives us a score that we consider to be neutral, then we’ll reach out to that customer and ask them what we can be doing better. We take what we learn from those conversations and do our best to implement fixes to any issues.”

The fleet-card provider enhanced its retention of new businesses after reaching out to customers. The company had been losing 10 to 15% of its new customers within 90 days after they’d engage with the company, Christensen told us. 

The company discovered through customer interaction that drivers can be reluctant to change their purchasing habits. To solve the problem, the fuel-service provider began providing drivers with a troubleshooting guide to help them gain familiarity with its services and learn what to watch for when seeking fuel for their vehicles.

“The economy hasn’t been super strong lately, and customers are trying to find ways to save money right now,” Christensen told us. “We can help them manage their fuel in a more effective way, and make it easier for them to track all of it. If we can make trucking more efficient, that helps everybody.”