Offering great customer service has been a key factor in the success of the Wesco chain of 24-hour convenience stores spread across West Michigan. To help them live up to their reputation, Wesco uses Danware’s Netop remote control solution to keep their "Pay-at-the-Pump" fuel dispensing system systems online – even when winter blizzards ravage the area.

Of the 54 stores that make up the Wesco chain of convenience stores, eight of them provide a "Pay-at-the-Pump" fuel dispensing system called Regal supplied by Texas-based vendor, AutoGas Systems, Inc. Both Wesco’s head office and AutoGas utilize Netop to monitor and control these fuel-dispensing systems.

“Netop is used mainly for maintaining complex systems that are too complicated to train most store personnel on,” explains Bill Hubbard, the man responsible for administering Wesco’s point of sales equipment - PC-based registers, PC-based pump controllers, credit card authorization systems, car wash controllers, etc.

When a site has an issue with a pump system, Hubbard or AutoGas utilizes Netop to dial-in to the store to fix the problem remotely. “We use Netop for everything from 'checking up' and remote program installations, to major file transfers from the store to my location and then on to Texas for analysis. I never have to leave my desk,” explains Hubbard.

The fact that Hubbard is on call 24 hours a day also means he can use Netop at times that are anything but convenient. “I’ve fixed numerous problems in stores that were as much as 200 miles away, all while sitting in my pajamas at home at 3 in the morning,” he recalls. “That’s an especially nice way of doing business when you consider Michigan’s winter storms!” Another configuration that Hubbard enjoys using with Netop is the battery back-up system. If a store loses power, the pump control computer and external modem ‘stay up’ because of the UPS back-up. This allows Hubbard to dial in and inspect the system even during total power failures. “That way, I can tell the store if anything is wrong before their power is restored. To conserve battery life, we don't leave the monitors turned on - it sure freaks the cashiers out to hear that PC 'talking' on the modem when they are surrounded by pitch blackness.”

The decision to go with Netop at the stores offering the, "Pay-at-the-Pump" system, was made by AutoGas who ship their systems with the preinstalled solution direct from Danware. According to Hubbard, AutoGas used other solutions prior to Netop, but they weren’t impressed with the results they received. After having used some of the other remote control solutions on the market, Hubbard tends to agree.

“Because of an earlier licensing agreement, we use pcAnywhere for our managers' back office PCs. But it drives us nuts. It's slow, it takes forever to walk someone through setting it up to host, and nearly a third of the time, we get a bad connection, are disconnected, or we have to reboot the host half way through a session. These types of problems don’t exist with Netop.”

While Hubbard uses Netop to service complex systems, he says the application itself is relatively easy to use. “We received a little training from our friends at AutoGas and every once in a while, they add something new (such as session recording). It's usually a snap to learn.”

“I could carry on for hours about the time, effort, travel expenses and money – (not to mention sleep), that we save just by using Netop as a tool for supporting our stores,” concludes Hubbard.