Tackling digitalization in the crisis: mobile payment at petrol pumps
THE CHALLENGE
We constantly ask ourselves how modern technologies can simplify our everyday tasks. At the checkout, for example, we are always happy when we don't have to dig out our wallet but can pay easily with Apple Pay or Google Pay.
But why go to the checkout when you have a smartphone with you?
WHAT WE DID
- Business model consulting
- Conception and design of the fillibri brand
- Technical implementation and operation of the mobile payment app
- Design of the user experience along the customer journey
- Marketing: promotional materials
- Explanatory film, social media, community management
Pay at the car when filling up
Simply refuel as always
You can start the app during the filling process or afterwards.
Pay quickly with PayPal
As in online shops, payment is made via PayPal; other options will follow.
Drive on right away
The cashiers are informed, the receipt is sent by email, refueling is done.
Will to act in the crisis
With the vision of mobile payment and the idea for the fillibri brand, we were preaching to the choir at Westfalen AG. "Pay-at-the-pump" was already a topic there and the desire for an app for all petrol stations showed the customer-oriented thinking at Westfalen AG. We then evaluated various usage concepts and developed a proof-of-concept. When Corona came along and made the situation at tills more difficult, Westfalen made the decision to invest quickly in the digitalization of the payment process and gave the project top priority.
Westfalen AG as an innovation leader
Among the market-dominating international conglomerates Aral (BP), Shell and Total, Westfalen is a small player. Nevertheless, the whole industry in Germany is looking to the Münster-based medium-sized company. In addition to hydrogen filling stations and modern car wash parks, its own digital product innovations such as flexible digital advertising space and mobile payment with fillibri are now being created in cooperation with Zweitag.
Fellow competitors jump on the bandwagon
Admittedly: We were not the first with the idea. In addition to two start-ups, a major corporation has also integrated a payment function into its app. However, this is limited to this one brand and we see the potential to catch up through a better user experience. Other companies are very interested in becoming partners.
Dr. Thomas Perkmann
Chairman of the Executive Board Westfalen AG
Digital product development, straightforward
Project start without changing the org chart
We formed a small team consisting of the start-up coordinator and the head of retail systems at Westfalen AG as well as strategic consultants from Zweitag. Together we analyzed the market, calculated business plans, designed the user experience as well as processes and developed technological proofs of concepts.
Momentum for digitalization achieved through fast results
Let's face it: awareness of the need for digitalization is also reaching German medium-sized companies, but many are struggling to achieve concrete results.
It is also not easy to get into a new work mode alongside existing business with no experience. However, existing gaps in expertise are also difficult to fill through recruiting if the environment for innovation through digitalization is not yet in place. Westfalen did not let this chicken-and-egg situation stop them and decisively broke new ground by commissioning the development.
Ready to go live after only 4 months of development
Within 8 weeks, the iOS app was made available to the first internal beta testers. Quick results create confidence towards a successful project. In another 8 weeks, we completed the app including Android support and payment connection. In the meantime, the project has gained further importance in the Westfalen Group. The step from "You should do..." to execution mode marks the start of a very valuable learning process.
After the development was controlled from within Westfalen, fillibri GmbH & Co KG was spun off for the public release. The autonomy thus created promises to maintain the high speed with which new results and findings are achieved.
André Stracke
Head of Service Stations, Member of the Executive Board Westfalen AG
Strategy, brand, product, marketing — everything from a single source
Fair enough: There are specialized innovation consultancies with a whole range of talented consultants. There are brand design agencies with impressive track records. There are online marketing, website, and social media agencies that have better economies of scale. Because most two-day workers are software engineers and product architects.
A handful Looking for specialist service providers And to get in line However, it costs a lot of energy. The dynamics create Frictional losses, no matter how open the service providers are to cooperation.
It is this pain point for our customers, which is why we now have 3-4 consultants, designers and marketeers among us. Unite us all highest standards about our work, be it creative or number-oriented.
Westfalen AG has therefore for its digitization project Fillibri one well-rehearsed overall team engaged where Every discipline goes hand in hand goes:
- Product vision ↔ technical options
- Brand Design ↔ user interface implementation
- Brand messages ↔ advertising material design
- Technology ↔ Customer support on social media
This Bundling of competencies Does she have short time-to-market Made possible in the first place.
Marc Weßling
Start-up Coordinator Westfalen AG
As nimble as a hummingbird - a fresh brand with a simple message
Purposeful, fast and effortless - the hummingbird embodies the brand message of «fillibri»:
- Logo: the silhouette of the hummingbird is reduced to horizontal, beveled stripes to suggest speed
- Name: "fill" picks up on the everyday act of filling up the tank and links it to "Kolibri" (the German word for hummingbird) and "libre" respectively
- Farben: Inspired by the dazzlingly bright plumage, a fresh, lively green and a calm, sublime dark blue, which can be combined differently with white depending on the intended use
The word and figurative mark forms the core; however, a brand is much more than name and logo.
With structure to the central theme
In order for a brand to work, the values that have been worked out have to run through all customer touchpoints like a personality, so to speak. This creates a brand promise that the product must keep.
For this purpose, we have defined a whole series of aspects in a brand guide:
- Brand identity with market positioning, brand purpose, brand promise and personality values
- Target group with personas and customer journeys
- Logo concept, structure and application
- Color palette and application
- Typography with usage variations
- Style and use of illustrations
- Language and tonality
A wide range of uses builds on this brand guide. No matter where a customer notices fillibri, in social media, online advertising, on a wide variety of advertising spaces at petrol stations, in app stores or the app itself – the brand is presented consistently, and the message is understood.
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