Category: Customers

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Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling

Featured Image: Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling

Yes, it pays to keep customers smiling—even in the midstream.

As midstream activity marches on in North America, customers show preferences for providers with strong operating and project-development skills. Professionalism also matters.

The need for solutions is diverse and widespread. Constraints in West Texas―ground zero of U.S. shale-oil production―crimp output. Natural gas in Appalachia seeks conditioning and outlets. Gulf Coast petrochemical and LNG facilities demand feedstock. Canadian producers beg for market access. Continue reading “Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling”

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Opportunity Looms in the Midstream

Midstream Assets

Consisting mostly of publicly traded master limited partnerships (MLPs), oil and gas midstream suppliers, for better or worse, are beholden to a breed of investor as interested in the return of capital (i.e., distribution yield) as in the return on capital (i.e., unit-price appreciation and/or distribution growth).

With oil and gas prices currently weak, the attractiveness of MLPs as income and growth investments is waning.  Midstream customers, made up mostly of upstream entities, are hunkered down.  Drilling and development budgets have been slashed, and suppliers of all stripes are being asked to lower costs till it hurts. Continue reading “Opportunity Looms in the Midstream”

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Shaping a Customer Satisfaction Culture

Shaping Change

Producing lasting customer satisfaction requires vigilant alignment of an organization’s many moving parts.  Moreover, the only way to influence the kind of company-wide change that breeds these levels is to entrench the entire corporate culture in a relentless drive to satisfy customers.

Mindful leaders know setting customer satisfaction as a primary goal can be met with resistance.  The payoff, while potentially transformative, is rarely immediate.  Success requires the will to influence, coupled with an eye for the horizon. Once the commitment and processes are in place, however, prioritizing Continue reading “Shaping a Customer Satisfaction Culture”