Driving Through Success At Savon

Four of the chain's stores offer tobacco, coffee and doughnuts at a drive-thru window

Located in Oneida, N.Y., SavOn Convenience Stores offer gasoline, tobacco, food-service and the typical convenience store fare. But recently, four of the 12 stores owned by the Oneida Indian Nation added drive-thrus to the mix where customers can now pick up coffee, doughnuts and tobacco without having to park or enter the store.

"The on-the-go lifestyle of guests is increasing and we needed to be more convenient," said Sean Brown, SavOn's operations director. "As a guest fuels up, it is very convenient to drive up to the window and get moving very quickly."

The drive-thru at SavOn's Dream Catcher Plaza location is connected to the store, while its other three drive-thrus are 8-foot by 12-foot kiosks that are positioned adjacent to the fuel island at the chain's three highest volume locations.

Customers can drive up between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. to buy tobacco, including Native American cigarettes manufactured by the Oneida Indian Nation, pipe tobacco, filtered cigars and other tobacco products. They can also get a cup of Green Mountain Coffee and fresh Daylight Donuts. The Dream Catcher Plaza drive-thru even sells Blimpie subs and fountain drinks through its window.

Guest feedback is important to the chain, and is one of the reasons the owners decided to add the drive-thru option. Continued customer feedback is also helping to decide which products to sell at the drivethru, with the latest addition being K-Cups.

"We have a K-Cup program that is very popular, with strong sales in our stores; guests said they wanted it offered at the drive-thru," Brown explained. "We are going to tailor the offerings to their feedback. Breakfast sandwiches are something we are planning for the near future based on the demand as well."

The K-Cup program — pods for use in a Keurig coffee machine — is a big growth category for the SavOn chain. While the stores sell packs of them, they also offer a mix-and-match program that allows guests to create their own six-, 12- or 18-pack. "They are wildly popular, and customers are able to try different flavors," said Brown.

The drive-thru kiosks have a separate staff, with one person manning each location. The coffee is made in the stores, and pots are brought out fresh to the kiosks as needed. The Dream Catcher location took on additional staff to accommodate its window.

Since launching in October, the drive-thrus have seen double-digit growth week over week in the number of people using the option. During the launch, customers took advantage of the promotional offer of a 16-ounce coffee and a Daylight Donut at the drive-thru for only $1.49.

"The drive-thrus are not something expected, so we have been educating our guests with Windfeathers, digital reader board signs and cashiers telling them inside the stores," Brown noted.

Additionally, while the morning traffic is high, many of the locations are seeing an increase in evening traffic, so SavOn may extend the drive-thru hours in the future to accommodate this, particularly at the chain's Canastota, N.Y., location.

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Along with the drive-thrus, SavOn stores will soon feature a new food-service program.

Five years ago, SavOn added a foodservice offering to its stores, which range in size from 3,500 square feet to the largest at 7,500 square feet. The demand for high-quality foodservice products keeps increasing each year, so the company plans to introduce a new food-service program in the next couple of months.

Currently, the stores offer pizza, sandwiches, salads and meal replacements, but the goal is to offer even higher quality items, according to Brown. Stores are testing options with the chefs at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino, also owned by the Oneida Indian Nation.

"We will have some new menu items and will do some of the menu items we have now even better," he explained. "We are leveraging the professional chefs to increase the quality of our foodservice."

Nearly all of the foodservice items are produced at the stores, although the chefs at Turning Stone Resort make the sushi sold on Fridays at three SavOn locations. It is delivered on Friday mornings and has been popular. The stores have sold out of sushi in the past, and the chain may expand the option to new locations soon.

The foundation of the company — and all Oneida enterprises superior — is guest service, which has been particularly emphasized at SavOn stores over the past two years. The chain launched a mystery shopper program where the stores are shopped 53 times per month, and coaching and feedback is immediately given to employees.

"We have had a profound culture change at our stores, and the employees are now driving the program," Brown said. "They take a lot of pride in what they are doing, and we honor employees who receive a 100 on their mystery shops."

In 2011, the chain honored 76 employees, and last year, there were 125 who attained a perfect score. These employees are invited to the "100 Club Luncheon" where they are individually recognized with a certificate and take part in prize raffles.

"It's changing the experience at SavOn for the good, and many employees came back from the luncheon last year and told co-workers, so we are hoping to honor 150 [this] year," Brown said. "As we saw scores increase, we saw a parallel increase to the bottom line and business performance, so it is positively impacting that as well."

For comments, please contact Tammy Mastroberte, Contributing Editor, at [email protected].