System switch proving problematic for fleets

By Fleet News
|
25 January 2013

Allstar fuel card customers are becoming increasingly frustrated with accessing online information and contacting call centre staff.

Fleet managers have reported having to wait more than 30 minutes to have calls answered, while not being able to access information via the company’s website.

FleetCor Technologies bought the Allstar fuel card business from BNP Paribas at the end of 2011. Jakes de Kock, marketing manager at Allstar, said: “As part of the acquisition agreement, we have had to migrate all Allstar customers from the Arval BNP Paribas legacy system, to the FleetCor propriety processing platform, by the end of this month.

“We have been migrating customers on to the FleetCor platform since the last week in December. This has proven to be a very complicated process as we have had to extract the Allstar customers from a technical environment embedded for 20-plus years.

“The new system will give us the flexibility to now rapidly enhance our services to customers, including improved reporting, enhanced security via chip and pin, improved online account management and more accurate business versus private fuel monitoring during 2013.”

However, de Kock admitted that the traffic to its call centre has increased significantly as customers get to grip with the new online accounting system.

“Resolving the inevitable teething problems associated with such a large customer migration is the top priority for the company and we have added additional resource within our customer call centre to cope with the additional traffic” he said.

“Normal service to customers will resume as soon as possible.”

See the next edition of Fleet News, out on February 7, for a full update on the Allstar situation and the company’s plans for the future.

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Author: Fleet News

Comments (4)

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elaine martindale - 05/02/2013 16:37

For such a large company you would have hoped they would have road tested the system before inflicting the chaos on its customers for such a prolonged period of time. If they knew the online system was going to be down then surely you compensate by increasing staff at call centres and the staff answering emails. I bet they don't compensate their customers and reimburse the cost of all the hold time on calls.
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Anonymous - 08/02/2013 15:29

I have just read the above article and also the article in Fleet News latest addition. We have spent since 7th January trying to get an answer from Allstar to problems with our invoices due to their system change- like Elaine below myself and colleagues have held for 20 - 30 minutes to get any answer and then are advised to send an e-mail, which we already did and which has not been responded to. Finally today I got an anwer which did not resolve any of my issues and only advised me what we already knew. I can also confirm we had no notification of any network service fee in advance and have just been sent the revised Ts and Cs that were dated October 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think the whole situation is an absolute disgrace and they are taking advantage of their monopoly of the market. I like many other are frustrated and angry about the whole situation.
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Jeremy Sothcott - 11/02/2013 12:17

The Allstar system migration has caused big problems and the customer service is a PR disaster. I have sent numerous emails to the account manager and Head of Corporate and Public Sector and have not received any response. Has everyone at Allstar been told not to resond to customer queries? As a company, they should at least respond or send out some communication or post something on their site. Many of our drivers can't submit their mileage as their username/passwords are now not recognised all of a sudden and we have not received the monthly mileage report that Payroll use for deductions. Come on Allstar, look after your customers and sort it out quickly!
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Colin Appleby - 13/02/2013 09:59

@Anonymous: What "monopoly in the market" are you talking about? Do you mean that Allstar is the only company that tries to frighten folks into believing that a BP, Esso, Shell, Texaco etc. logo is a rare sign on Britain's roads? If you mean that Allstar is the only one that gives no discounts, ever, on pump prices, then I'm not sure that's true. If you mean that Allstar is the only one that expects you to queue for a random anonymous operator in a call centre, that's certainly not true - quite the opposite, in fact. Almost the whole fuel card industry treats its customers with such disdain - I can only think of one firm that routinely allocates each and every customer a named account manager, with named backup to cover holidays etc. Yes, I have a relationship with a fuel card supplier - although not as an employee or shareholder - but I'm not going to name them or push their particular wares.
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- elaine - 13/02/2013 12:24
  
  @Colin Appleby - Please spill the beans!! I am still trying to find the elusive "good Guy " company within the fuel card market.
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- Really? - 15/02/2013 17:38
  
  @Colin Appleby - Colin works for a PR agency that does the PR for another fuel card provider. My question to Mr Appleby is: if the fuel card supplier he is working for is so wonderful, why spend all his time and effort trying to break down competitors, rather than promoting the "wonderful" services and products of the company paying him to do so? Say what you want about Allstar, I have never seen them slinging mud at competitors.
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