In the face of a mixed-energy future, the importance of forecourt and in-store customer experience in driving loyalty and revenue is top of mind for fuel and convenience retailers.
Global Convenience Store Focus and Urgent joined Ireland’s leading family-owned forecourt convenience retailer Maxol to dive into how operational technology supports the overall customer experience.
We spoke with Frank Melia, Maxol’s Maintenance Coordinator, to explore how the company uses technology to support an effective maintenance strategy, driven by Maxol’s commitment to its customer-first ethos.
Creating Multi-Energy Convenience Hubs
Maxol is recognised and respected throughout the island of Ireland and beyond for its innovative approach to retail and mobility services, and importantly, its focus on people: customers, staff and suppliers.
In recent years, the Maxol business has evolved from a traditional fuel-focused operator to a convenience-led multi-energy provider with an extensive food and convenience offering, bringing customers exclusive home-developed brands such as ROSA Coffee and the Maxol Deli, alongside global fast-food brands such as Burger King.
In 2025, Maxol’s Newbridge site was shortlisted for Insight Research’s Best EV Hub in the World.
Maxol Newbridge was a previous recipient of the NACS European Convenience Retail Best of the Best Store Award; the addition of an ultra-rapid Maxol Recharge hub to this site highlights Maxol’s commitment to EV mobility and to the continual development of its customer offer.
Addressing Growing Complexity: The Need for Advanced Asset Management
As Maxol forecourts have transformed into the modern fuel, food and retail destinations that customers experience today, the challenge of keeping everything running smoothly and available for customers has become more complex.
The number of assets required to support the delivery of the services on offer – from food-to-go, coffee shops, convenience stores, car washes, and fuel – has soared, according to Frank Melia, Maintenance Coordinator at Maxol.
There came a point when the team at Maxol recognised that the business had outgrown its former approach to manual handling of asset management.
The business needed to introduce technology to provide visibility and control of the wide range of equipment the company employed to ensure seamless delivery of the comprehensive customer offering.
A Strategic Partnership for Maintenance
The Maxol team chose Urgent to support its maintenance strategy and underpin customer experience.
This decision was based both on the industry-specific nature of the platform and the Urgent team’s deep knowledge of fuel and convenience retail.
“There’s a lot of complexity in terms of assets on the sites, some requiring more frequent intervention and maintenance than others,” said Frank Melia, speaking of the 126 company-owned Maxol sites.
“Using Urgent gives us a tool to stay on top of that complexity.”
“We also wanted a system that would be straightforward for our on-site retail teams to adopt to enable them to focus on serving customers, not logging equipment faults or chasing for repairs.”
The Impact of Proactive Maintenance on Customer Satisfaction
While not a customer-facing activity itself, an effective approach to managing planned maintenance has a direct, positive impact on the quality of customer experience.
Preventative maintenance, inspections, and regular servicing reduce both the number of – often more expensive – emergency repairs over the course of a year and customer frustration due to out-of-service assets, from coffee machines to ovens to car washes.
By allowing the in-store team to focus on the customer, rather than reporting or dealing with broken equipment, Maxol delivers a high level of customer satisfaction and drives revenue.
“We want to be certain that when a customer walks into a Maxol store, they can buy that coffee or ice cream,” said Melia.
“That means moving away from reactive maintenance and getting ahead of any breakages or outages, so that we don’t have asset downtime.
Investing a small amount of time to set up our PPM is a huge time saver and reassurance, knowing that those tasks are being taken care of by Urgent. What was once an intensive manual process, is now fully automated.”
CEO Insights: Technology Driving Efficiency and Customer Experience
Brian Donaldson, CEO of Maxol, spoke in a recent Future of Convenience podcast ‘How Maxol is Redefining the Customer Journey’ about the importance of asset management and maintenance technology in driving operational efficiency and customer experience, particularly across a growing estate.
“It’s all about making sure that we have uptime across all of our fixtures, right across the estate… every piece of kit is coded, so we know when we installed it, we can understand its reliability, when we have to maintain and when we have to replace certain parts.
“It becomes a much more proactive rather than reactive approach to how we manage our estate, and it is an estate that continues to grow.
Therefore, we need to have that confidence in the tools in which we can manage our operating overhead costs, in the most efficient and the most cost-effective way.”
Donaldson continued to explain that Urgent takes care of the day-to-day tasks, giving his maintenance team time to focus on the exceptions or to troubleshoot any sites which are flagged in the Urgent platform.
“This technology and reporting capability enables us to be much more decisive and spend our time more wisely.
It shows you the exceptions, and that’s invaluable when you’re running a business, continuing to invest in more complex assets and larger properties.”
Leveraging Data for Strategic Decision-Making
Melia agreed: “One of the aspects I like most about the system is the daily prompts it gives me on where to focus my attention.
It gives the team visibility of which sites or pieces of equipment are giving us the most problems, and which to spend time investigating.
“The business intelligent reports Urgent provides are hugely beneficial, as well as a time-saver.
Melia gave an example: “The business was planning to replace its ice cream dispensers.
Previously, it would have taken a whole morning to pull together data on those manufacturers and models we currently have installed.
Now, it takes seconds.
Being able to report on assets in this way gives the business confidence in planning and budgeting for new equipment.”
While customer experience is fundamental to the Maxol vision and mission, Maxol also places high value on relationships with its business partners and suppliers.
Melia gave a key reason for selecting Urgent as a system that would see fast adoption by retailers and contractors alike, due to its intuitive, user-friendliness.
He’s confident that staff on Maxol sites can start using the system effectively with minimal training.
“The mobile app is a real time-saver for our retailers and their store teams.
Every asset is tagged, so the retailer simply scans the broken asset.
That means we’re building a better picture of what’s happening on our sites using accurate asset data.
And contractors arrive on site better prepared to handle the repair.”
Melia says he has seen contractor performance and time to repair improve significantly since the introduction of Urgent: “Everyone in the maintenance chain benefits from the visibility that Urgent provides.
The conversations we have with contractors are much more targeted now.”
Smart Sensors and Automated Reporting
Looking ahead, Maxol has plans to innovate using technology to improve customer experience, specifically adding smart sensors to revenue-generating assets to be able to report faults automatically, whether that’s fuel pumps, fridges or freezers, coffee machines or ovens.
“The car wash, for example, is often situated out of sight of the convenience and food hub.
So, it could be some time before staff become aware of the problem and report it.
That means unnecessary additional asset downtime which will impact customer experience – and revenue.
With the right smart sensor technology in place, that fault would have been logged directly in Urgent and a contractor notified.
Reducing manual intervention and speeding up the time it takes to get a service or facility back up and running for customers to use is the goal.”
Customer Expectations and The Critical Role of Operational Technology
When asked what matters most to Maxol customers, Brian Donaldson emphasised quality first, followed by the overall experience and environment, and then price.
As customer missions have evolved and customer expectations of the convenience offer has grown, the sites and assets needed to support those expectations have become increasingly complex.
It’s clear why the right operational technology to support an effective asset maintenance strategy has become critical for Maxol to deliver consistent customer experience and drive brand loyalty.
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