Customer Testimonial for Media: Roberts Garages

Published 18th September 2008

Roberts Garages is a family-owned group of garages in Jersey founded in the late 1950s. The company’s first ‘garage’ consisted of a petrol pump in the garden of founder Frank Roberts’ home. Since then, the company has flourished and grown into a locally respected business employing 50 staff across three busy sites. Indeed one of the sites was in the Guinness Book of Records for selling the highest amount of fuel from a single pump in a 24 hour period.

As well as having full petrol facilities, each site also features a convenience store selling a wide range of groceries, and one site includes an off-licence.
“Despite the growth and complexity of our operation, and the fact that all of our sites have long opening hours every day of the year, we have maintained a reputation for friendly, helpful staff and quality products. In many ways we are the modern ‘corner shop’ and our customers rely on us to be open all hours and to stock almost everything,” said Colin Roberts, managing director, Roberts Garages.

The company purchased its first POS system 30 years ago and has always had a policy of investing in the very latest technology to streamline its data processing and accounting systems. The increasing complexity of the business means that the company has come to rely heavily on its POS system, and therefore requires a high standard of support from its suppliers.

Historically, Roberts Garages had received satisfactory service and support from its POS supplier. However, a few years ago, shortly after it acquired a new POS system, the situation changed dramatically as the staff that Roberts had grown to trust left the supplier.

“We began to have major problems with the support we received from our supplier, and on several occasions had to wait days - and sometimes even weeks - for help, and even then the support staff didn’t seem to know what to do. Some of the developments and upgrades to the system that we had been promised also failed to materialise,” explained Roberts.

It became clear that Roberts Garages needed to find a new POS supplier that could provide a modern POS system and deliver the professional levels of support the company required.

Roberts Garages chose to replace its POS system with Torex™ LUCAS-POS for petrol after reviewing a number of POS systems on the market. Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol offers a platform independent solution specifically designed for the petroleum and convenience market. The software meets major international industry standards including IFFS and ARTS and allows for both wet and dry stock to be purchased in a single transaction.

Roberts’ decision to choose Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol was based on two key criteria: functionality and support. When it came to support, Torex staff proved themselves almost immediately when the previous provider went out of business and left Roberts Garages in the lurch with no support for its existing POS system.

“Torex personnel really helped us out in a crisis and worked with us to keep our POS system running while planning the installation of the Torex system. They clearly valued our business,” said Roberts.

Furthermore, Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol met the majority of Roberts Garages’ requirements, and Torex was able to develop new features if Roberts Garages needed additional functionality to drive its business forward.

Torex was also committed to enhancing Robert Garages’ loyalty card scheme, which is used by more than 12,000 customers (30% of it’s customers). In addition, 35 percent of Robert’s Garages business is through 2,500 local customer accounts, the information for which is held in its back-office systems. Therefore, it was essential that the new POS system supported the loyalty card scheme and integrated with the company’s back office system Genesis, from Proteus Software. To keep these programmes running, Torex committed to developing any additional integration code that was needed.

On installation, the team had done many hours of in-house testing and training, and were always available if any issues arose during the implementation. “We had what seemed like a direct line to Torex offices at times. Nothing was ever too much trouble and I must say that we are extremely pleased with the end result; the support team was second to none,” said Roberts.

Roberts Garages has seen a variety of benefits from the new system. For example, the compact nature and lack of cabling associated with the POS hardware saves space and minimises the opportunity for cables to be inadvertently unplugged.

But most importantly Roberts Garages now has a stable and reliable POS system with very little downtime, which is a major benefit to both staff and customers.

“I am absolutely confident that we made the right choice in choosing Torex to be our petroleum and convenience POS provider. We have certainly achieved our goals for our POS system, and the support Torex provides us ensures that not only are we very happy, but our customers are too,” said Roberts.

Moving forward, Roberts is planning to look at additional Torex solutions including integrated CCTV and Outside Payment Terminals, making clear his commitment to deploying the latest technology to develop his successful family business further as well as provide the best customer experience possible.

About Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol

Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol is an open standards-based POS solution designed specifically to meet the needs of petrol and convenience retailers, providing them with a flexible and scalable system to meet their customer service requirements. Running on Java, Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol can run on either Windows or Linux machines, ensuring that retailers can benefit from an open, platform-independent solution that is highly configurable and quick to implement. As it is based on the ARTS Data Model and uses open XML based interfaces, Torex LUCAS-POS for petrol can also integrate with legacy forecourt equipment and payment systems, retail management, merchandising and stock solutions.

About Torex - www.torex.com

Torex has 20 years’ experience of working in partnership with the world’s most forward-thinking retail, petroleum and convenience and hospitality brands to entice, engage and retain their customers.

Over 7,000 customers worldwide depend on our proven, best-in-class solutions and knowledgeable industry experts to help them identify, define and deliver a more personal and qualitative experience for each customer, and to maximise profitability, increase ROI and achieve competitive advantage. Torex customers include McDonald’s Corp., Tesco, Selfridges and Argos.