Here is a link to one of the better reports I think the AP has done on Heating Oil…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27956966/

Hello,

One of our vendors we do business with convinced me to blog this story.. so here I go.

Last weekend we received a no heat call like we do every winter’s day… except this service call was for a natural gas customer.  We told him we couldn’t help him.   I quote the customer who called now…  ” But the gas company won’t be out here for three days to fix it”

We get more and more of these calls each and every year.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to help this person as we didn’t have a gas tech available and we only service our own clients.  Our clients always come first! (in the interest of full disclosure, we do a limited amount of gas service for a few established clients)

One of the beautiful things about oilheat is choice!   You have a choice of who you do business with.  You have a choice of who you let come into your home and service your expensive heating equipment and rely upon to make sure you have product in your tank!

One of the beautiful things about the gas company (if you are an oilheat marketer at least) is YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!  The gas company doesn’t care if your heat goes out at 5pm on Christmas Eve, just in time for the Turkey Dinner.  You just can’t call up Westfield Gas and Electric and switch over to Holyoke Gas and Electric!  You are prety stuck and the gas companies know it!

I feel sorry for those that got baited by the gas companies over this past summer because oil prices sky rocketed.  We lost a few long time customers to the gas companies, even though we did our best to explain to them they might want to reconsider.  You just can’t put a price on service people!  There is value in knowing that someone like us will be there for you on Christmas Day if your furnace all of a sudden decides to get stubborn.  

Enough said…

The winner of this month’s drawing for taking their time to complete the online customer satisfaction survey is…..

Pam Lasante of Chicopee!

Congratulations!

Please remember anyone can enter each month… (although if you have already done so, please wait till after you have had a service call, install, oil delivery…. something where we could possibly get some new input)

I think this survey is going to be of enormous help to us in providing superior customer service.

Thanks!

I probably shouldn’t name this post that title, but it certainly is catchy!

After too many delays, and more customer requests than I care to admit, we are almost ready to launch the online customer account section of the website.  (There is one last thing we are waiting on from our friends at Microsoft… for the technical minded it is a upload package that lets two different SQL databases sync)

For those that don’t know by now, the online customer account section will work like many large enterprise businesses have.  It wIll allow you to pay your bills online(credit cards only to start), lookup your transaction history, budget inforamtion.. things such as that)  As time goes on, I am sure that many additional features will be added to it.

Anywhoo, I was thinking that before I place the actual signin link on the new current customer section of the website for all to use, I would like to get a few of our customers to test it out privately first.  So over the next week or two, I will be gathering individuals to do just that!  If you are interested, please send me a private email…  chris@fuelservices.biz . 

We are looking forward to providing this additional free service to our customers.  

Thanks

I just wanted to wish all a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Peace…..