Speaking to The Financial Express here on the occasion of the launch of the Petrocard in Ahmedabad and Vadodra, the general manager marketing for the western region, Vijay Kumar, said the launch of Petrocards in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad in the first phase followed by coverage of five other cities-Pune, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Kochi and Trivandrum-in the next phase had evoked phenomenal response from loyal customers. This, he said, had been reflected in increased sales as well though he was unable to support this with figures as "we have not yet assessed the impact in revenue terms."

Kumar expressed optimism that the card would do equally well in Gujarat as well where BPCL is already the largest retailer of petrol supplying an estimated 2.3 lakh kilolitres of petrol against the total demand of seven lakh kl in the state. In case of high-speed diesel too, BPCL is the second largest retailer after IOC with sales touching 6.82 lakh kl last year compared to the total sales in the state of 26.40 lakh kl.

According to Kumar, the launch of Petrocard is basically a loyalty programme on the lines of programmes run by airlines to keep their customers happy and satisfied. "We are hopeful that our programme too would help build customer loyalty in view of which we have set an optimistic target of achieving a customer base of over five lakh by the end of this year," he said.

Petrocard is a fast, reliable on and off-line payment mechanism. A multi-purpose card, it is currently valid for three petro products namely petrol, diesel and lubricants but there are plans of expanding it for other purposes like LPG bookings. The card also has lots of incentives attached to it in the form of a petromile scheme which can be redeemed for numerous gifts ranging from air freshners to colour TVs to make it more attractive for the customers Here BPCL definitely has an edge over rivals in the energy sector who are yet to evolve such schemes despite the fact that competition is likely to hot up in the coming years with the dismantling of the current administered pricing mechanism by 2002 and the ushering in of an open market system in the sector.

It is precisely with this in mind that BPCL has already put into motion a plan to focus on marketing with a view to achieving customer loyalty, 100 per cent customer satisfaction and upgrading product quality as well as service. After conducting an in-depth analysis, BPCL has even changed its structure and re-organised itself into six strategic business units, each of them focussed on addressing individual needs of the specific customer segment they serve.

In addition, with a comprehensive e-Business strategy in mind, BPCL has also launched an Internet site where industrial customers can place their orders and track them. Soon, domestic and international airline customers of the PSU would also be able to manage their business with BPCL over the Net. Similarly, to make life easier for harried housewives, BPCL is also in an advanced stage of developing a system for refill booking over the Net. Plans are also afoot to link all its petrol stations and LPG distributors and transact with them electronically.