Note: The following is an excerpt from The Guaranteed Customer Experience. You can download Chapter One to read the rest of the story about Buc-ee’s.
Imagine driving cross-country on a road trip.
You need gas, and you need to use the restroom. Choosing a place to stop is a big decision. Gas stations can be miles apart. The station you see on the horizon probably has gas, but there's no guarantee they’ll have a clean restroom. Do you need to stop now, or do you have enough fuel to keep going until the next one?
You size up each gas station’s convenience store you pass as your level of urgency increases. Some are rejected at first glance for being too scary. You slow to scrutinize others. Will the restroom be open or out-of-order? Will there be a line? Will it be clean?!
Your car's gas gauge is hovering near "E," while your own tank is dangerously close to "F." Decision time. Where will you stop?
You're not alone in this experience. A study from the travel app GasBuddy found that 40 percent of Americans worry about finding a clean restroom on a road trip.
Buc-ee's, a chain of gas station convenience stores located primarily in Texas, has developed a devoted customer base by solving this problem.
Driving through Texas, you're likely to encounter any number of humorous billboards advertising the nearest Buc-ee's location:
Image courtesy of Lou Congelio, Acme Fish.
I once counted 19 billboards on a stretch of highway. The messages often repeat the same promise that Buc-ee’s has clean restrooms.
Image courtesy of Lou Congelio, Acme Fish.
The billboards speak clearly to customers on the go who desperately have to go. They demonstrate an understanding of this common road trip problem and promise that Buc-ee's will solve it.
Many travelers will drive past other gas stations to get to a Buc-ee's, because Buc-ee's provides an assurance that other brands don’t.
This billboard is a welcome sight to a traveler with an urgent need.
Your heart might skip a beat when you pull into a Buc-ee's for the first time. This place is huge!
There’s a steady stream of cars in the parking lot, but you’ll still find plenty of parking and gas pumps. Semi-trailer trucks are not allowed, which creates a bit more space than the typical travel stop.
The restrooms are clearly visible from the front entrance, but you might still worry. Will there be a long line? Or worse, will it be a mess?
Buc-ee's does not disappoint. 8.3 million ratings of fuel and convenience retailers on the GasBuddy travel app rated the restrooms at Buc-ee's as the best in America. The restrooms at each location are unbelievably plentiful and clean, and each is well-stocked with paper and soap. Many are downright enormous.
Clean restrooms attract customers, but that's not all Buc-ee's has to offer.
It has all the items you'd expect to see in a convenience store—such as soda, candy, and chips—though on a much larger scale.
Most convenience stores are lucky to have one Icee machine that barely works some of the time. There are four Icee machines at the Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas. Each is in perfect working condition.
There are also things you wouldn’t expect to find in a typical convenience store. Larger Buc-ee's locations have a barbecue counter where employees make hot sandwiches to order.
There's also an enormous display of house-made beef jerky and candy past the counter. Keep walking, and you'll come to a large section selling Texas-themed gifts and Buc-ee's apparel.
I once stopped at the Buc-ee's in Luling, Texas, to get a dog leash. My wife and I were on a road trip, and I had accidentally left our dog's leash at my mother-in-law's house in Houston. "Let's stop at Buc-ee's," I said. "I bet they have dog leashes." Sure enough, they did.
The size of the store and the sheer number of customers can intimidate first-time visitors, but Buc-ee's is surprisingly convenient. There are multiple cash register lines open with friendly cashiers ready and waiting to serve you.
Buc-ee's draws large crowds. Its locations average nearly four times as many customers as a typical convenience store.
Imagine attracting four times more customers to your business than your competition. What would cause so many customers to give you a try and, once they did, keep coming back? The secret is customer experience.
Buc-ee's wins customers from competing brands by consistently providing restrooms that are far superior to anyone else's. It averages a four-star rating on Yelp across all locations, with a whopping 46 percent of those reviews mentioning the restrooms.
Cody Esser, who writes the Impulsive Traveler Guy blog, traveled to 33 Buc-ee's locations over the course of three days in 2018. He reported that not a single restroom at any of those locations was dirty. I polled family and friends in Texas, asking what they love about Buc-ee's. Nearly everyone mentioned the clean restrooms.
Of course, the Buc-ee's experience is more than just clean restrooms. It keeps customers coming back with stores that are bigger and have a broader selection of items than a typical gas station convenience store.
Outside the Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas.
My friend Robin summarized the Buc-ee's experience nicely: "I love that you can get bakery items, fresh-made candy, wonderful hot sandwiches, that they have a gift shop, and also have clean bathrooms! They have everything a traveler could ever want."
Conclusion
The challenge for any business is to figure out exactly what problem it can consistently solve better than the competition. It has to be something that customers value so customers choose you over other options.
You can download Chapter One from The Guaranteed Customer Experience to read the rest of the story and learn how to identify the problem your customer is trying to solve.