JF Petroleum Group provides gas, along with equipment, construction and environmental compliance services for gas stations and other fuel storage places across North America.
JF Petroleum wanted to increase their digital interaction with their customers, making it easier for customers in today’s highly digital world.
The first step was an ecommerce site. The second was to launch mobile apps.
MobiLoud helped them do it, in a way that was risk-free and easy to manage. Best of all, it worked - finally giving them the perfect app to fit their needs.
About JF Petroleum Group
JF Petroleum sells gas to gas stations and other fueling stations and storage facilities. They also provide equipment, do the construction, environmental compliance and sell all the pieces and parts needed to distribute fuel.
They operate across the continental United States, and sell to Canada and Mexico as well. Their company currently has a headcount of over 1400, and have been steadily growing through a number of recent acquisitions.
The Challenge
“We had recently launched an e-commerce site and we're moving towards digital interaction with our customers. We felt like an app was an easy way for us to be right there on their device, make it accessible for our customers and contractors and have push notifications about things that are going on.”
As Vice President of IT Brent Stimmel states above, JF Petroleum was becoming more digital, and the logical next step after launching their ecommerce site was to launch mobile apps.
The first challenge was figuring out how to build an app without an app development team in-house. They had proficiency in building websites, but not the ability to code their own app.
So they looked at app builders. But the results weren’t great, and the apps that came out of it struggled to pass the app store publishing process.
“I had used several other companies, similar to MobiLoud, and just didn't have a very good experience with getting the apps approved in the App Stores.”
Brent needed a way to build apps that the app stores would approve, without the hassle and expense of hiring a fully native development team.
The Solution
MobiLoud presented the perfect solution for Brent and JF Petroleum.
The big differentiator between MobiLoud and other app builders they’d use was that we can guarantee app store approval. We do that based on our vast experience of publishing apps to the iOS Store and Google Play, and working within their guidelines throughout the development process.
“The thing that sold us with MobiLoud was that you said that if we build this app and we can't get it in the App Store, you don't have to pay.”
This guarantee made it totally risk-free for them. Should the app not work, should it not pass the app store guidelines, they would lose nothing.
“We're like oh, we’ve got nothing to lose. It's a couple of thousand bucks to get an app up, and if it doesn't work then we don't have to pay.”
The other huge plus of MobiLoud was the ability to build and manage the app through their mobile website.
The MobiLoud app simply displays their website as an app, with a few minor adjustments. That meant they had almost full control over the app design, without the limitations of many app builders.
“We weren't limited by the app builder. We could just display our mobile web page inside of an app wrapper. Our marketing team could build the website however they wanted and it would just display in the app. We love that.”
It also made it so much easier to manage the app going forward, allowing their existing web dev team to make changes and have it reflect on the app.
“When we want to change something, we only have to change our mobile website and boom, it's live on the app.”
Results
The JF Petro app was easily approved by both Google Play and the Apple App Store.
As adoption goes, it’s been picked up by a large portion of their customers. Brent and the team are happy with the pickup and reception to the app, which is being used by approximately 40% of their customer base.
“We've been very happy with the adoption rate. We’re around 4000 installs and about 10,000 sessions over the past year. We're never gonna have millions of downloads because it's just not our customer base. But it’s a substantial portion of our customer base, probably about 40%.”
Building an app that does what they wanted it to do, with minimal investment and little to add to their workflow, was a huge win.
Build Your Own Mobile Apps, Risk-Free, Today
Brent has a great experience with MobiLoud. It’s the perfect option for those who don’t have a massive amount of time, money and energy to spend on building an app.
“It was an easy experience. I've always got a million projects on my plate and with this I was able to spin up an app in two months for a couple $1000. It made me look really good. I like everything about the experience.”
You, too, can look good in front of your stakeholders, users or customers, and present the kind of app that other companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for.
MobiLoud is the easiest and most effective way to turn any website into apps. You can launch on Android and iOS in less than a month, you’re guaranteed approval from the app stores, and your existing team will be able to manage and update the apps.
Get the process started now to start reaping the benefits of your own mobile apps. Book a free consultation call with one of our app experts to see how it’s going to work, and how MobiLoud will help you achieve your goals.
JF Petroleum Group provides gas, along with equipment, construction and environmental compliance services for gas stations and other fuel storage places across North America.
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