It's raining, you're in a rush, and you just want to pay for your gas as quickly as you can without getting out of the car. Wouldn't it be great if there were a way to do that using automatic license plate recognition, or QR codes? These are just some of the exciting ideas our customers have posted on Tilt, which is celebrating its first anniversary this month.

It's raining and you're in a rush. How could you pay for your gas quickly without getting out of your car? Automatic license plate recognition or QR codes could be a solution. What other services could make your life easier when you stop at a service station? Driver fatigue tests would come in handy.

The Tilt platform, which was developed by Marketing & Services, is brimming with hundreds of ideas like this - 1,288 to be exact, and counting. The one thing they have in common is that they were all thought up by our customers. In fact, Tilt was first launched a year ago in October 2014 to give our customers a chance to do just that - tell us what they think. 'Don't forget that one of the Business Segment's objectives is to reconnect with customers and delight them. That means coming to a better understanding of their needs and meeting their expectations. Tilt is just one of the ways we're taking up this major challenge, and it's opening our minds to new products and services that could be invented well beyond the boundaries of the Group,' says Laurent Brun, head of Consumer Services and Innovation at Total Marketing France.

The platform is based on a simple concept and is easy to use. It features a variety of quizzes in the form of contests with open questions ('You're filling up on gas and the pump display starts talking to you. What does it say?') and surveys with multiple choice questions ('What type of packaging do you prefer for your lubricant?'). It has also been gamified to make the experience more fun. Users can 'like' ideas and even earn points for making popular suggestions in contests.

Rule no. 1 for Tilt's developers was to make the platform beneficial to our businesses. That's why the relevant divisions judge the contests and pick the winners themselves. A total of 39 ideas are currently being implemented, and another five are already in place. These include linking top GPS mobile app Waze with the Total application to make service stations easier to find, and identifying products our customers would like to see in their online shop, like hub-cap cleaners, car seat maintenance products and discounted auto care packs.

After one year up and running, Tilt is setting its sights on new horizons, says Laurent Bernimont, Innovation Coordinator for Europe at M&S's Innovation Division. The first goal is to 'branch out beyond France into other affiliates, starting in Europe'. The second is to expand from B2C into B2B to include business customers in the dialogue via private contests accessible from the main platform.

You too can participate and post your ideas on Tilt! (French only) !

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