When Steve Weller was a boy in New South Wales, in a small town about 90 minutes north of Newcastle, his father had a gas station and, on the weekends, Steve would help out by pumping gas.
“I’d pump gas, and I would wash the windows (of the cars at the pump). My dad would pay me two cents a window and I remember how the old Ford Falcon station wagons had 10 windows. That was 20 cents! That was a lot of money back then,” said Weller.
The memory of that full-service station and the lessons Weller learned about customer service are still a part of his approach to business today. And as Weller prepares to open his own gas station in West Sidney, his hope is to provide that kind of personal, full-service gas station experience to his customers.
“We want it to the kind of place where you can pull in and get your windows washed and your tire pressure checked… all of that… and have it done by people who get to know your name,” said Weller.
It’s a tall order in a world where personalized service is increasingly becoming a quaint idea of the past, but it’s an ethos that Weller has applied to every business that he’s ever run.
“I’ve been doing business in Sidney for more than 30 years and it’s always been the way I approach customer service,” he said.
Weller started his first restaurant with that philosophy in Sidney in 1993 and, in ensuing years, opened body shops, gyms, a hotel, restaurants, and a liquor store – always with customer service front of mind.
“We had eight different businesses in Sidney over the years," he recalled. “We bought a local cafe on the industrial side of Sidney. That’s where it started. Then we started a body shop and bought up a competitor to expand the body shop. Then I brought in a partner, and we just kept going. Every time we saw a hole in the market we’d stick our big toe in it.”
But, although the nature of his businesses varied widely, Weller’s philosophy of providing personalized customer service remained constant. And, if the industry shifted to preclude that sort of service, Weller would refuse to go along.
“We sold the body shops in 2015 because the big guys were absorbing all the little guys. The insurance companies were becoming more difficult to deal with and they only wanted to deal with the big guys. The insurance companies also wanted to take it out of our control to access our customers. I rejected that. I couldn’t answer the phone with any other name but our own.”
When Weller opened up Canora Liquor in West Sidney he once again ensured that customer service was foremost on the agenda.
“Customers get treated like family there. We have a policy that you won’t be in the store for over a minute without a staff person offering to help you find what you’re looking for. We know their names and if a new person comes in and I’ve never seen them before, I ask ‘How did you find us’ and ‘Where did you come from’. I’m genuinely interested,” Weller said. “Let’s face it – you can buy a bottle of wine anywhere, but if you come in here, we appreciate the fact that you chose to come in here.”
A part of Weller’s commitment to Sidney is his belief that folks on the west side of town deserve to have the same convenient services provided to them that the remainder of Sidney enjoys.
“The highway is such a barrier to people, especially the elderly population. They have everything they need in downtown Sidney, so they don’t have to come to the west side, but the people on the west side are saying that we deserve the same thing here,” Weller said. “We also get a lot of people coming here from North Saanich. It’s just very convenient for them.”
Another factor in his decision to open up the gas pumps in West Sidney is the fact that his location on Canora Road already has a car rental outlet and those cars, as well as other rental cars from the airport, require refueling.
“In fact, our very first sale was to a couple who pulled in just today (Sept. 24) and asked if they could fill up the gas on their rental car,” Weller said. “We weren’t really open yet, but everything was working so we said, ‘Why not?’ and we pumped our first $29 of gas. It was our first customer.”
Weller’s station will be operating as an independent gas outlet, rather than operating under the banner of one of the big gas outlets.
“We can buy fuel from any one of the distributors here … Chevron, Shell, Exxon, Petrocan … and we’ll pump it at their prices. We won’t make as much as the big multinationals, but that’s OK.”
The station, located at 9429 Canora Rd., is adjacent to Clair Downey Service, an automotive repair and maintenance shop that has been in operation since 1951.
“Brandon French bought it a few years back and he’s a great guy who provides great service. He’s the kind of guy you need to stick around in West Sidney, Weller said.
Weller observed that the only businesses that are successful for the long term in Sidney are the ones that provide good, honest services.
“We’ve seen some guys blow in and then disappear. That’s the beauty of doing business in a small town. If you don’t sharpen up and run your business honestly and correctly, you’re not going to make it because word gets around. You might get away with that in Vancouver, but not here.”
