The road to success: Aramark and CAF play key roles in Maxol’s recent Award wins
Maxol knows a thing or two about winning. Last month (June), the company won the NACS European Convenience Retail ‘Best of the Best’ Store Award for the redevelopment of its store in Newbridge, Co Kildare, Ireland.
The award, presented during the virtual NACS Convenience Summit Europe, recognised Maxol’s transformative, customer centric brand experience in Newbridge and strong sales growth of more than 43% in 2020 (vs 2019). This growth was significant at a time when the pandemic depressed driver traffic and general sales for retailers right around the country.
For The Maxol Group, the celebrations keep on coming, as Brian Donaldson, Group CEO explains: “Last year, we celebrated 100 years in business, a huge milestone for the company. Unfortunately, many of our planned celebrations had to be put on pause. This year, as the country gradually reopens, we are celebrating a best-in-class win, so there is a lot to be proud of within the Maxol family.
“The award is a testament to the fantastic team in Newbridge,” he says. “Not only is Maxol Newbridge the best of the best in Ireland, but the best in Europe as chosen by our industry peers. Congratulations to all the team in Newbridge for their contribution and hard work in marking another great day in our long history.”
Maxol Newbridge, operated by Aramark, features the first Maxol Burger King drive thru in Ireland alongside a Maxol Deli, fresh Rotisserie chicken, a new ice cream brand called N’ice Cream and Maxol’s exclusive coffee, ROSA. Aramark is a global specialist in food and facilities management services and is licensee for six Maxol Group sites; five in the Republic of Ireland and one in Northern Ireland.
Awards pedigree
The Best of the Best accolade at Newbridge follows a flurry of recent award wins for the network. Mark Cribbin, operations manager at Aramark Ireland, explains the significance of the latest win: “This award is the jewel in the crown for what is now a multi-award-winning Aramark-Maxol partnership, underpinned by the genuine pride our people take in their work – serving customers and creating fantastic forecourt experiences.”
Last year, Maxol Clarecastle won the Global Forecourt Experience Challenge, an initiative launched by Insight in partnership with CAF Outdoor Cleaning.
In 2018, Maxol A26 Tannaghmore in Northern Ireland won Forecourt Trader of the Year and Maxol Ballycoolin in Dublin scooped the Forecourt Best Food to Go Offering in the Best in Fresh Awards. Meanwhile, Maxol M3 Mulhuddart was named Forecourt of the Year in Ireland’s Forecourt & Convenience Awards in 2016.
“Newbridge is the fifth site in the network to win a national and international award,” says Mark. “A large part of winning is because our relationship with Maxol is very strong. It’s a successful model that’s good for the business, and even better for our customers,” he says.
Aramark works closely with Maxol’s head of retail, Siobhan Grimes, and head of capital development and food, Ciaran MacNally.
“Site standards are continually enhanced and the Newbridge team has remained passionate about delivering the best of the best every day,” Mark says.
Aramark also partners with sector experts across its operations, such as CAF on forecourt cleaning, BWG in retail and Pallas Foods in foodservice and reports that whatever a person’s role within the Aramark team, there is an expectation they are joining a world class operation. “It’s about attitude, ability and a good smile,” Mark says.
According to Mark, Aramark has a clear, three-point focus:
- Importance of customer service
- Importance of safety
- Importance of training and development
Those principles were behind both the Newbridge award win and the Global Forecourt Experience Challenge, he says. Exceptional customer service is delivered through a dedicated training programme, which incorporates acronyms like WEST: welcome, engage, smile, and thank you. “That’s literally stuck to the back of the tills,” Mark says.
Maxol’s own in-house training programme is similarly aligned and Mark reports the retailer will bring different licensees to different sites to see what the Best of Best looks like. Consistency is also key – there is not only an expectation to provide world class customer service but to continue to do so.
A relaxed culture, versus ‘big stick’ mentality, helps to maintain that ethos, Mark says.
A former Superquinn manager before Aramark, Mark cites the supermarket chain boss and founder Feargal Quinn’s take on customer service from his “Crowning the Customer” book: “Every customer is a boomerang – you bring them back,” he says. “The importance of customer service is core to who we are.”
Dedicated training and development team
Customer service follows through to training and development, another area Mark is passionate about.
“We talk about growing your own timber,” Mark smiles; and reveals seven members of Aramark’s Maxol team are currently on apprenticeships and studying for a degree in an Irish Government-recognised qualification in retail management. “We are not just looking at the business now, but in two years’ time and we are developing people who will be joining with same attitude,” he says.
In the same vein, Aramark talks about long-term career paths within retail in the organisation. “There’s no ceiling and the bigger the business the more opportunities there will be,” Mark says.
The philosophy and culture is led and disseminated by Aramark’s senior management team: managing director of Ireland Shane Flynn and president of Ararmark Northern Europe, incoming IBEC president, and former NACS chairman Frank Gleeson. “They are both from the forecourt retail business so completely get what we are about and take pride in the Award wins,” Mark says; and he credits Gleeson’s attitude and ‘open door policy’ for creating Aramark’s unique business mentality.
Training is delivered by a dedicated training and development team and is comprehensive, spanning all aspects of the job, ranging from customer service and food safety to retail and IT, and across the whole organisation. Mark himself recently completed a NACS leadership course.
Safety and cleanliness
Central to any retail business is safety and cleanliness and Mark stresses: “We are absolutely passionate about safety in our business.” Safety huddles are held before every single shift and teams have access to an innovative app, Good Save, where members can upload ‘good saves’ from both inside and outside their work environments, which are published by a staff-led safety team.
The safety focus chimes perfectly with CAF. Aramark was the first Maxol licensee to partner with the forecourt cleaning specialist. CAF’s cleaning products and academy training have subsequently rolled out across the entire Maxol network and to other Irish forecourt operators too.
Perry Paganelli, European vice president at CAF Outdoor Cleaning, emphasises the symbiotic relationship between safety and cleanliness. “Customer safety starts with cleanliness, and it sets the standard for the whole site,” he says. “You can have the best food offering around but if the nozzles are greasy or you are stepping in nasty oil stains and gum, it does not set the right tone for your food service experience,” he says.
Mark agrees. “When the Global Forecourt Experience Challenge began, it was clear that our high standards were clearly aligned with those of CAF. The customer experience starts as soon as you drive onto the forecourt and if you see a dirty pump, you will go to the next site. If you see a spotless site and you are greeted with a smile and the staff are engaged, you know that it’s a good site.”
The Global Forecourt Experience Challenge, a two-month challenge that took place in July and August 2020, recognised teams for cleanliness and safety efforts on-site during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The initiative saw Maxol Clarecastle work tirelessly to compete against forecourt retailers across the globe including Circle K and Coen Markets in the USA, Puma in South America, Esso on the Run in Australia and Engen in South Africa. “We don’t think it’s a coincidence that we won these awards during the pandemic when safety and cleanliness had never been so urgently brought to the fore,” Mark says.
He reveals that Aramark created ‘spaghetti maps’ by plotting customers’ touch points as they walked into a store. “They were touching 15-20 points in store and we were able to show our teams what they had touched; it was very, very clear,” Mark says. “As well as alerting staff to cleaning hot spots, staff would then take that mentality home with them,” he adds.
Insight and CAF’s forecourt challenge drove a similar sense of understanding.
“It distilled what it takes to be the best of the best – the core principles of cleanliness and safety and creating that model in every single staff member every day.”
CAF and Aramark both believe cleaning standards and safety will become even more paramount moving forward as the overall purpose of a site shifts to become a multi- purpose destination with a big focus on food, rather than just a fuel stop. “To be competitive in that space, the operational standard becomes more important because customers will be turned off by a negative first impression,” Perry says.
Working with 35,000 service stations worldwide, CAF is the go-to company for forecourt cleaning solutions but not just for product. CAF’s Academy provides interactive training to suit all stores’ needs with customisable programmes. There’s also a library of training resources, which retailers can access, just as they did in the global challenge.
CAF is now extending its reach in Europe. Alongside Maxol and Aramark, it is partnering with Applegreen in Ireland, Moya in Poland, and Circle K in a number of European markets and established a manufacturing facility in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 2019. “We look to keep building in the European market as we believe we have the right model to support petroleum retailers,” Perry says.
Back at Aramark the aim is equally clear. “Our goal is to continue to open more sites under the successful Maxol model and to maintain a positive mentality to meet the changing needs of our customers,” Mark says.
