Help BP Service Station Owners Repair Their Reputation

All over New England, former Getty service stations are now being transformed into BP outlets. Getty exited the gas business last year and signed a deal with a BP distributor.

Bad news for the owners of those stations.

A Metheuen, MA manager tells a local newspaper that he once sold up to 4,000 gallons of gas a day, which has dropped to 1,100 under the BP name. A Salem, NH owner testifies people drive by and shout obscenities. For many stations, business has dropped 50 percent over the last few weeks.

"I'm just a small guy," gas station owner Jim Daaboul tells the Newburyport Daily News. "Customers need to look at the service, not the sign."

My readers are incredibly smart and love a challenge, so let's put you to work as marketing consultants for these don't-have-a-choice new BP station owners. What can they do to repair relations with an angry public, to, as Daaboul puts it, get them to look at the service, not the sign? Let's assume they are stuck in their BP deal for awhile, and that the agreement doesn't allow dealers to bad mouth the BP brand.

My feeling is that Step 1 has already been taken by getting a newspaper that reaches tens of thousands of local residents a day to write about the problem. Step 2, I think, is to promote, market, price cut and anything else they can think of to get former customers back in the habit of driving into their stations and remembering the people they've done business with over the years.

What is your plan for these dealers suffering under a bad sign?

(BP image by infrogmation, CC 2.0)