Fuelmate is on course to break 50 million litres of sales for the first time in 2017 due to profitably growing its market share in the past 12 months.

The figure represents a 20% increase on the previous year, when the fuel card provider sold 41.9m litres.

To facilitate further growth, the company is now looking to expand its sales force by 50% over the coming months. Fuelmate, which is part of the family-owned JR Rix & Sons Group of companies, is currently recruiting to grow its sales team from 20 people to 30 before the end of the year.

Business head Andy Smith (pictured) said the growth was a result of proactively growing customer numbers and a shift in trends in the fuel card market place, which had moved from being mainly cost centric towards encompassing the quality of service offered by the provider.

He explained: “The fuel card industry has traditionally competed almost entirely on price, but in line with other sectors service, convenience and value added are now becoming much more relevant. This is an area in which we will continue to capitalise.

“We’ve looked at innovative ways of doing things, for example introducing JourneyTrack, our business mileage capture app, our free garage locator app, and we’ve added to our already extensive network offering by adding a supermarket fuel card option that enable local businesses that don’t use the motorway network to access all the benefits of a fuel card.

“Value added services like this are helping our clients run their fleets more efficiently, and as a result, save money.”

Smith said that offering these extra services had directly translated into higher levels of customer satisfaction.

“We recently surveyed our customers,” he said. “They have told us that they value the solutions we offer, which tells us the market has shifted and customer expect more than just a low price. This has definitely featured in our growth.”

To facilitate future growth, he is now looking to grow Fuelmate’s sales team by half. “We want to capitalise on the success of 2017 and have some ambitious targets,” he said.

“The way to meet them is to grow our team of dedicated account managers, so we’re on a recruitment drive. If we can find people who are as good as our current employees, 2018 should turn out to be another fantastic year.”