Barbadian consumers will soon start benefiting from new state-of-the-art energy products and services, as the Texaco brand disappears from the local market after some 76 years, and is replaced by Rubis under a $2 million rebranding project.
Rubis, which bought over the fuels marketing business of Texaco from Chevron in April last year, this morning announced its intention to begin rebranding the 12 Texaco petrol stations across Barbados from the middle of this month.
Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados-based Rubis Caribbean, Mauricio Nicholls told a news conference at its Warrens offices, that the process would begin on October 15 with the Sunset Crest Service Station, and the remaining stores would be completed by mid-November.
He gave the assurance that all of the former Texaco gas stations which are run down, would be overhauled, in addition to the network of outlets taking on a fresh, bright and colourful image with a clean, classy physical appearance and high tech petroleum products and services.
He said all of the services stations would remain open during the rebranding programme.
“The first thing customers will see (from the rebranding) is the Texaco brand will be replaced with the Rubis brand. Our colours will be different; they are white, red and green, and our appearances lighter, brighter, more modern and it’s more appealing. We will continue to offer high quality fuels, but we will introduce new products, we are introducing a new state of the art technology that will keep the engines running like new and that will give you excellent mileage,” the Rubis CEO informed.
He announced that the new additive technology, called Ultra Tec, would be applied to both gasoline and diesel and a modern type of lubricants, known as Total, would also be introduced to the local market. The existing greyish Texaco Liquid Petroleum Gas cylinders would also be phased out as they are replaced by green bottles.
He revealed that a large shipment of the new ‘bottles” has been ordered, but told consumers the Texaco valve could fit the new cylinders.
The Rubis chief told reporters the company would be introducing a fleet card for commercial customers, such as businesses with a fleet of cars.
A $200,000 ultra modern car wash, which may be the only one of its kind in the hemisphere, would also be installed at the Kendal Hill Service Station in Christ Church. Nicholls explained that it would be touch-free, which meant, there would be no brushes to come in contact with the vehicle, only very powerful jets of water and said motorists could expect washes at three levels – basic or classic, deluxe and the works, which included polishing.
Safety would also be a big deal for the company.
“We have put all of the safety measures in place to make sure our contractors, the service station employees and service station customers are completely safe,” added the top executive.
Nicholls said, too, that when completed, all the stations as well as the auto marts would look brand new and attendants would wear new Rubis uniforms.
The CEO also told Barbadian consumers that customer service would be second to none, considering the fact that the company had invested a substantial sum of money in intense training, which included role-playing by employees.
While acknowledging that customer service had been a challenge in the past, it was a priority for the company and would not be a one off exercise.
Via Barbados Today
