How Toot’n Totum is taking greater control with Verifone Commander

Running a convenience store means connecting far more than what customers see at the counter.

Fuel, payments, loyalty, pricing, promotions, security, and store systems all have to work together. When something changes — or something goes wrong — the ability to respond quickly matters.

At Toot’n Totum, that reality has shaped a philosophy for how the company operates:

“No one cares about us like us”

For the Texas-based convenience retailer, that means building the expertise to manage more of its technology environment internally. Toot’n Totum maintains its own pump technicians and Verifone Authorized Service Contractors (VASCs), giving its team greater ownership over the systems its stores depend on.

It’s an approach that Rance Wells, Vice President of IT at Toot’n Totum, sees reflected in the company’s relationship with Verifone.

“Verifone aligns with Toot’n Totum in that aspect,” Wells says. “No one cares about us like us.”

It’s a relationship Wells knows well. He has spent 20 years in convenience retail with Toot’n Totum and has worked with Verifone throughout his entire career there.

Building more control into the operation

For Toot’n Totum, ownership starts with the ability to act when a store needs attention.

Depending solely on outside service providers can introduce delays. Toot’n Totum has built a different model, with pump technicians and VASCs on staff who can troubleshoot issues, perform upgrades and maintain critical systems themselves.

“If we didn’t have VASCs, it would be hours to days before someone would come fix an issue or perform an upgrade,” Wells says. “By having VASCs internally, we’re able to do our upgrades overnight.”

The same focus on control extends across the retailer’s Commander environment.

Toot’n Totum operates stores under different fuel brands, but Wells says Verifone has helped created consistency across those environments.

“Verifone has done a good job of making all configurations the same across different fuel brands, so it is way easier to manage,” he says.

That consistency matters for our employees and IT team responsible for much more than the point of sale. Wells’ team supports networking, smart safes, alarms, and other technology across the business. The more the team can standardize and manage within its Commander environment, the less operational complexity it must navigate from store to store.

The technology has evolved alongside those needs.

Wells describes the difference between earlier generations of Verifone technology and today’s Commander Site Controller and Commander C18 Point of Sale as ‘night and day’ — moving from serial connections to networked systems designed around security, scalability, and interoperability with Toot’n Totum’s broader technology ecosystem.

“All the things Verifone does, they do well, and they scale, and they work with all our different partners,” Wells says.

Keeping complexity away from the customer

The value of that control ultimately shows up somewhere else: the customer experience.

Convenience retail has become increasingly sophisticated behind the scenes. But Wells argues that the customer shouldn’t have to think about any of it.

“At the end of the day, someone shopping at a convenience store doesn’t care about all the technology,” he says. “They care about speed of service. They care about being able to use their loyalty card quickly to get in the door and out the door with what they need.”

“Verifone has been able to help us do that for many years.”

That is the other side of Toot’n Totum’s technology strategy. By having a great back-end strategy behind the counter, they are able to deliver the best end-to-end experience.  They are committed to keeping the experience in front of the technology fast and easy.

The C18 POS is one example. Wells points to its reliability and ability to move between cashier-assisted service and self-checkout as capabilities that give stores greater flexibility in how they serve customers.

“The versatility of the screen being able to flip into self-checkout — it’s really something you don’t see on any other system out there,” he says.

For the customer, the technology itself may be invisible. For Toot’n Totum, making it work reliably across the operation is anything but.

Taking Commander from the store to the enterprise

The next evolution is extending that control beyond individual stores.

Managing a large store network has historically required Toot’n Totum’s IT team to perform certain tasks one Commander at a time. Even a routine change — such as moving a manager from one location to another — could mean accessing individual systems to update users.

Commander Central is changing that model.

“Before Commander Central, we did not have access to all of our sites on an enterprise level,” Wells says. “Now that Commander Central is here and it is available, we’re able to do things on an enterprise level that we’ve never been able to do before.”

For Toot’n Totum, that opens the door to managing users and configurations more centrally, shifting Commander backups to the cloud and creating easier access to data across the business.

It also changes how Wells thinks about bringing new capabilities into the operation.

As more functionality moves from individual desktop applications to the cloud, Toot’n Totum expects to be able to make changes centrally and push them to sites rather than touching stores individually. APIs can also make it easier for the retailer to connect new partners and applications to its Verifone environment.

“As Verifone continues to move things to the cloud away from desktop applications, it’s going to allow us to pivot in real time,” Wells says. “Time to market is going to be reduced dramatically. We’re going to be able to do things in the cloud and push them to the site instead of having to touch every single store.”

For an IT organization built around taking ownership of its environment, enterprise management is a natural next step: control no longer has to stop at the store.

A partnership built around how Toot’n Totum operates

Toot’n Totum’s approach isn’t about doing everything itself.

It’s about having the ability to act independently when it can and having a partner that responds when it can’t.

“Being able to handle things internally allows us to own the process from start to finish,” Wells says. “When we need Verifone, they’re there for us.”

That relationship extends from the help desk through escalation when a problem requires additional expertise.

“If you need something, someone is available,” Wells says. “Someone’s always available to take your call, to try to solve your problem, or get you to the right person that can solve your problem.”

After two decades of working with Verifone, Wells sees that human connection as just as important as the technology.

“In business, it’s not just the technology, it is the relationships,” he says. “Over the years, the Verifone guys go out of their way to build those relationships with all their partners.”

Built to keep moving forward

During Wells’ 20 years at Toot’n Totum, the technology behind convenience retail has changed considerably. The principle guiding the retailer’s approach has not.

Own what you can. Respond quickly. Give your teams the tools to solve problems. Keep the complexity away from the customer.

Commander has evolved alongside that model — from the technology running individual stores to an increasingly connected platform that gives Toot’n Totum more ways to manage its operation across the enterprise.

For Wells, that evolution has renewed his outlook on what the partnership can enable next.

“With the new changes at Verifone, it has really been a breath of fresh air,” he says. “I think they’ve really hit their stride this year.”

And for other operators thinking about how they want to manage the next generation of convenience retail, his message is simple:

“If I was another operator and I was trying to innovate and solve problems, I would say now is a good time to come to Verifone.”

See how Verifone Commander can help simplify the technology behind your stores and give your team more ways to manage your business. Talk to a Commander expert.

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